Hiller Zweigelt Rubin Reserve 2018

We discovered Hiller some years ago on a Germany trip, oddly enough, and THANK GOODNESS. What a score!! A family wine estate in Great Reipersdorf near Pulkau in Austria, these reds and whites are some of the sexiest wines for the money on planet earth. You can get a 6-pack with FREE GROUND SHIPPING for $143.70, insane for wine at this level! A First Bottle world exclusive...you can’t find this anywhere else, and if you did, it would run you closer to $40! Everyday-all-the-time drinking wine. Try some, bet you’ll be back! The perfect BBQ drinking, summer-lovin’ red to drink when the mercury is rising.

For the first time since we started importing these wines years ago, we visited the property in Pulkau a couple months ago (a couple photos from our trip below), and we love this winery now more than ever (is that even possible?). We had Simone’s mothers Schnitzel and did a midnight tour at the winery (yes, seriously) and stayed up drinking Gruner and Zweigelt until the wee hours of the morning. We tried their whole lineup and each bottle tasted, and there is simply not a bad wine in the lineup.

The Zweigelt is always a pleasure and the Rubin (translated to “Ruby”, referring to the grapes virbrant red color) is a blend of the wineries top vineyards in the Pulkau. Morello cherries, sweet herbs, cassis, licorice and toasty oak with hints of vanilla, lots of spice and some raspberry cream. It’s fresh, ripe and utterly delicious. Good God where to stop?!! Austria is going to blow the top of our heads off with this stuff! Deep and dark but still lithe on the palate, it is just a thrill a minute wine and makes us nuts thinking abut the food pairing possibilities (pretty sure we're going to try making a Peking duck tonight).

Fun Facts about Zweigelt:

- Leading red grape in Austria

- A crossing between Blaufrankish and St. Laurant by doctor Frtiz Zweigelt

- Dark, purple colour, fruity, spicy aromas of cherry and berry fruit. Soft tannins, moderate to low acidity, bit of spice.

- The name of the grape is pronounced “TSVYE-gelt”

PAIRING IDEAS: Peking duck people! The cinnamon and clove flavors all match beautifully here.

MUSIC SUGGESTIONS: Just because it is playing in the background right now as I sip my morning glass of Zweigelt, and it seems to be working magic. Steve Miller’s "Joker" is the perfect vibe.