Netzl 2009 “Rubin Carnuntum” Zweigelt (Carnuntum) – I’m consistently surprised at how some Austrian zweigelts are pushed into acrobatics I’m not sure zweigelt was ever mean to perform. It’s a worldwide disease, though – taking the indigenous and trying to fluff it up for the bright lights of the big city – and while it’s dismaying, one can’t really fault the commercial aspirations behind the impulse. There’s a middle ground, though, in which the grape is laden with aspirations but is not subject to a foreign finishing school somewhere near Nevers, and this is an example of same. The drippy black aromatics retain a certain floral aspect, there’s acid to counter the intense (but far from rich) fruit, and the structure is otherwise neither abrasive nor intrusive, though it’s quite clearly there. It’s a wine that goes down fairly easily, for all its muscularity, but when it has finished its descent one realizes that not much of note happened along the way. (5/12)