Blaufränkisch is a red grape planted primarily in Austria and Germany

October 27, 2010

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What on earth is blaufränkisch? Now, I admit this question may not be foremost on your mind, but the pleasure of the answer makes the question worth asking.

Blaufränkisch is a red grape planted primarily in Austria and Germany, which is interesting only because of the excellent wine it can make. But to discover the wine, you have to make the leap past the unfamiliar, unmelodious (to American ears, anyway) name of the grape. It doesn’t help that the grape is sometimes known in Germany and Washington State by the equally discordant names lemberger and occasionally limberger.

Do you ever wonder at the influence of the name of the grape on our perception of it? Graceful, lyrical French and Italian grape names have such an advantage in our culture over the more rasping Germanic names. Chardonnay or zweigelt? Weissburgunder or nebbiolo? It reminds me of theold George Carlin routine about baseball vs. football. Think of how many potentially pleasurable experiences await if we can get past the strangeness of names and taste the wines.

I had the opportunity the other day over lunch at Fatty Crab, a restaurant in the West Village specializing in southeast Asian street foods with a highly imaginative wine list. It was serving blaufränkisch by the glass and of course I just had to have one.

What a delicious wine, rich and truly spicy in the mouth. Spicy is often used to describe syrah, for example, but I’ve never had a wine that was spicy enough to warm the mouth like this 2004 blaufränkisch from Paul Lehrner, whose vineyards are in Mittelburgenland in eastern Austria, almost on the border with Hungary. The more famous Austrian areas, like Wachau, Kremstal and Kamptal, are all to the north and west, and they specialize in white wines, like riesling and grüner veltliner. But Mittelburgenland is blaufränkisch territory.

The wine went beautifully with a spicy dish like hokkien mee, strips of beef with tiny clams in a black vinegar sauce with rice noodles. Though spicy, the wine was not tannic or alcoholic. It was balanced and delightful.

I’ve seen the Lehrner blaufrankisch selling for $14 to $20, depending on the store. I like the wine so much I’m even toying with a new slogan to wean people from those pretty French names: Things Go Better With Umlauts.

Source:

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/05/12/a-rose-by-any-other-name/

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