Great wine for a $20…

2016  Hillinger Zweigelt

Burgenland, Austria

Regular Price: $21.99

Sale Price $17.99

Wanna have some fun this holiday season? When your brother-in-law, the wine expert, starts mouthing off about his last trip to Napa and all the 100 point wines in his ‘cellar’, ask him about Austrian reds. Nope, tell him, not Australia…Austria.

Then sit back and enjoy his utter and complete lack of knowledge.

After he fumbles for any coherent response, you can inform him of the 2000+ year history of the Austria wine industry, and that it really wasn’t antifreeze that went into a few sweet wines in the 1985 scandal. Then ask him if he knows anything about zweigelt. He doesn’t.

So, this wine is of Zweigelt, Austria’s largest planted red grape. It was developed in 1922, by Fritz Zweigelt, across of Blaufrankisch and St. Laurent. This wine, made by the iconoclassic Leo Hillinger, is fantastic. Its bright and juicy with good grip, not ponderous or overbearing, but refreshingly crisp. Its very versatile and easily pairs with a wide variety of foods.

By the way, your brother-in-law won’t like this wine. It’s balanced and and low in alcohol.He thinks that good wine should taste like cough syrup. He’s wrong.