He was Head of State Vine Cultivation during the period of the First Austrian Republic and also acted as Director of the School of Viticulture and Horticulture in Klosterneuburg near Vienna.
Blauer Zweigelt is grown across an area of some 6,400 hectares in Austria, making it by far the most significant red wine grape cultivated in the country.
[2] In 1912, he entered the services of the Imperial School of Viticulture and Horticulture in Klosterneuburg near Vienna, Austria's first and only state-owned vine cultivation station.
This was followed by a Blauer Portugieser x Blaufränkisch crossing in 1923 (added to the Austrian Grape Variety Index for Qualitätsweine (Quality Wines) as "Blauburger" in 1978[7]).
He would be able to lead "his" Klosterneuburg to new heights as a sister institute to the much larger State School of Viticulture, Fruit Growing and Horticulture in Geisenheim am Rhein.
In 1943, however, publication ceased by order of the Reichsnährstand (a government body set up in Nazi Germany to regulate food production) in Berlin.
[18] A pupil named Josef Bauer (born in 1920) had been arrested by the Gestapo for being a member of the "Austrian Freedom Movement", a group founded by Roman Scholz, an Augustinian canon regular at Klosterneuburg.
Starting in 2002, an annual Dr Fritz Zweigelt Wine Tasting Prize was awarded to estates in the Kamptal Region.
Zweigelt's long-standing staff members Paul Steingruber and Leopold Müller resurrected vine cultivation at Klosterneuburg after the war and went on to produce an outstanding St. Laurent x Blaufränkisch crossing.
"[30] Zweigelt's pupil and admirer Lenz Moser propagated the plant material at his vine nursery and introduced self-rooted cuttings onto the sales market from 1960 onwards.
[31] The official designation "Zweigeltrebe Blau" appeared for the first time in 1972, when the new Grape Variety Index for Qualitätsweine (Quality Wines) was launched.
"institute without direct characteristcs", an Austrian artist collective) made a proposal in 2018 to rename the grape variety to "Blauer Montag" (lit.