Record 40.8C (105.44F) in Vienna = a sign that it’s time to take a break from the scorching hot asphalt of the city’s 6th Bezirk. The constant noise of the summer street works and neighboring church reconstruction add to the sentiment. Off to Styria it is!

We’re not traveling just to escape the heat. We’re traveling to one of our favourites. Realistically, family Thaller’s restaurant in Sankt Veit am Vogau is sick- if you’re into best wine lists and best zero kilometer ingredients, that is.

There’s a farm in the back of the restaurant the size of a tennis court or two. There’s no tennis court.

There’s a fruit orchard. There’s vegetables in raised beds. There’s plenty of lawn to walk barefoot on.

There are ponds where fish spend their final moments in before hitting chef Norbert Thaller’s kitchen pan.

You get the spiel. Most ingredients that arrive to the plate are grown by the family. The rest is sourced through tight connections from across the wider region, though never too far out.

I still remember one of the earlier visit to Thaller when family grandma sat at the end of the service, crushing the walnuts and separating them by hand.

This is silly, who else does this??! THALLERS ARE THE REAL DEAL. Sustainability here is lived, not lifestyled.

Anyways, that vermouth pictured above is crazy. Bitter, floral, concentrated, not sweet. No artificials.

Right! Onto work and onto one of my own favorite wine lists- must be one of Austria’s best? The fact that there’s deep verticals of Styrian magician winegrowers can hardly be disputed. It’s just wild. OH, THE VERTICALS!

What immediately catches the eye and sleeps out there in those cellars, for example, is:

2018 to 2021 of Andreas & Elisabeth Tscheppe’s Schwalbenschwanz, Blaue Libelle and Salamander, as well 2015 to 2022 of Hirschkäfer = insane
Franz Strohmeier Lysegröns No 5 to No 10 = come on
2016 to 2020 vertical of Roland Tauss’ Sauvignon Blanc H and the 2005 in the magnum = H for HOT
Sepp and Maria Muster’s Morillon Graf big vertical 2013 to 2021 (some in magnum btw) and Gräfin 2016 to 2021= just crazy
Small verticals of Werlitsch Ex Veros I, II and III across vintages = where else do you get this

These Styrian growers, a.k.a. Schmecke das Leben group, deserve this. For two decades now, they’ve been inspiring many in the wine growing world, as well as the world of trade. They’re some of the few wineries who have been with Karakterre festival since our day one, in 2011. They’ve inspired Thaller’s wine book, too. If you don’t seem them on the road as much, that’s because they prefer their brothers and sisters like the Thallers do the talking for them.

I’ve singled out the SdL wines as they were the philosophical beginnings of Thaller’s current wine book of sorts- its core- and it shows when you scan the listings.

The restaurant being in the heart of Styria, it naturally includes almost all of the latest new regional growers, as well as the previously established Karakterre names that we love (Elias Muster, Sternat-Lenz, Wachstum König, Michi Lorenz, Harkamp, Ploder-Rosenberg, Tamara Kögl, Karl Schnabel, Josef Totter, Jaunegg, Rebenhof, Vino Gross +++). So, is it the best Styrian wine list out there, anywhere?

Compared to some years back, however, the book now goes far and beautifully wide across the low intervention world. We’ve enjoyed our dinner with the 2009 Mora (a BDX blend) of another magician, Slovenia’s Aleks Klinec. That sang!

What also sang was the food. Chef Norbert dishes are clean, fresh, flavor elaborate, and - fun. The ingredients here don’t fly (they do on the palate, they don’t in transport). Where we actually sit, they surround us. That’s what I call luxury.

Delicious and fully matured Klinec Mora 2009 (note the brass chiller and the wine book mid-upper left)

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PS: Two set dinner menus with a glass of Jörg Bretz’s refreshing 2016 Grüner Veltliner sparkling, a glass of vermouth and a bottle of 2009 Klinec Mora + all the other bits and bobs set us back 428 EUR.

Karakterre Travel: Is This the Best Styrian Wine List Out There, Part 1

Record 40.8C (105.44F) in Vienna = a sign that it’s time to take a break from the scorching hot asphalt of the city’s 6th Bezirk. The constant noise of the summer street works and neighboring church reconstruction add to the sentiment. Off to Styria it is!