The federal state of Styria with its capital Graz is located in the south-east of Austria and covers 16,400 km². It borders the federal states of Carinthia to the south-west, Salzburg (west), Upper Austria and Lower Austria to the north, Burgenland to the east and Slovenia to the south. The Celts were already cultivating vines from the fourth century BC. As in the whole of Central Europe, the Franconian Emperor Charlemagne (742-814) gave new impetus to viticulture here. In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church and its monasteries, especially Rein Abbey of the Cistercian monastic order, made great contributions to Styrian viticulture. In 1406, 535 villages with 6,000 vineyards were already documented. In the 16th century, the vineyards covered 35,000 hectares, which was around eight times as much as today. However, the Duchy of Styria was much larger than it is today and also included Lower Styria in Slovenia.
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