Feiler-Artinger Blaufränkisch, Burgenland, Austria 2015 (£10.99, Waitrose) Austria’s blaufränkisch may just be the perfect autumnal red wine. When there is a whisper of wintry cool in the air, but before we’ve gone into cuddle up by the fire mode, and when we’ve left summery lightness of foods and drinks behind, but are not quite ready for the big bear hug of a heavy red, blaufränkisch offers a happy medium. It’s spicy, herby, full of fruit – black cherries and blackberries, as well as liquorice and pepper. But it usually offers all that abundance of flavour with a bit of tannic crunchiness, freshness and tang, and sometimes a waft of something floral, too. It’s more French syrah than Australian shiraz in other words, although it’s very much its own thing. As a starting point, I’ve long enjoyed Waitrose’s succulent example, which has a redder cast to its fruit, and a pleasingly sour, tomato dish-friendly snap.
Heinrich Blaufränkisch, Burgenland, Austria 2015 (from £16.65, VINVM; Hailsham Cellars) Blaufränkisch has played a crucial role in the development of Austrian red wine in the past couple of decades, becoming a calling card red grape variety for a country that is still better known for its white wines made from grüner veltliner and riesling. The heartland of both Blaufränkisch and Austrian red wine in general is the Burgenland region in the east of the country (the variety, known by its local name kékfrankos, also flourishes across the border in Hungary), and whenever I taste a line-up of wines made from the grape in the region, it strikes me that the range of styles has broadened and quality has improved. One producer that has remained a personal favourite, however, is Gernot Heinrich, whose 2015 blaufränkisch is fine-textured and full of character, with an almost citrussy tanginess to go with its savoury herby spiciness.
Judith Beck Blaufränkisch, Burgenland, Austria 2016 (from £12.96, Les Caves; Buon Vino) The producer who has done more than any other to put blaufränkisch on the fine wine map is Roland Velich. Raised in a winemaking family, Velich set out on his own with the specific intention of making blaufränkisch with the kind of sensitivity and lightness of touch more usually associated with the best pinot noir wines of Burgundy in France. You can see a certain family resemblance with the French region in the latest vintage of his Moric Blaufränkisch, Mittelburgenland 2016 (£22.80, Bottle Apostle), which is blaufränkisch at its most red-berried and pretty: light, silky, almost graceful, but complex, long and refreshing, too. There is something of the same elegance in the wines of another fine blaufränkisch producer working in the Burgenland, Judith Beck, whose very attractive natural 2016 is a joyously fruit-driven and succulent red with the tingly sweet-sour interplay of autumnal damsons and red plums.
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