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 in the southwest, Salzburg (west), Upper Austria and Lower Austria in the north, Burgenland in the east and Slovenia in the south. The Celts practised cultivated viticulture as early as the fourth century BC. As in all of Central Europe, the Frankish Emperor Charlemagne (742-814) gave new impetus to viticulture. In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church and its monasteries, especially Rein Abbey of the Cistercian monastic order, made a great contribution to Styrian viticulture. In 1406, 535 places with 6,000 vineyards were already documented. In the 16th century, the vineyards covered 35,000 hectares, which was about eight times as much as today. However, the Duchy of Styria was much larger than it is today and also included Lower Styria, which lies in Slovenia.
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Thorsten Rahn
Restaurantleiter, Sommelier, Weindozent und Autor; Dresden