Vineyard Size: 30 hectares
Total Production: 120,000 bottles
Farming: Sustainable, Organic Practices
Certification: None
Grapes Planted (Red): Blauer Wildbacher
Grapes Planted (White): Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc), Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris), Gelber Muskateller

The Sabathi Winery is an outlier in Styria having been farming grapes all the way back into the mid 19th century. Viticulture here was never supposed to be the bread winner. Grapes always has a tough go in the humid environment. Due to Styria's wind and weather influence coming from a gap in the Julian Alps leading to the Adriatic Sea to the south, it is very different from the rest of the wine regions of the country. Unlike hot and dry Burgenland or cool and dry Niederösterreich, grapes here are grown on slopes at least 200 meters up so as to protect them from rot by the winds. The slopes should also face south, east, or west to encourage phenolic (flavor & aromatic) ripeness as the growing season on the mountains is much shorter than on the valley floor. Since 1999, Hannes has been in charge of the winery with a history which relied on mixed agriculture until the point when he decided to focus entirely on wine.

Being down-to-earth is important for Sabathi, and in his case, it means his relationship with the Kranachberg, which after talking to the winemaker you are tempted to call it his “personal hill”. The fresh mineral taste in his wines is due to the sandy/gravel soil, the same ground on which Sabathi’s own development and character thrive.

“My wines”, Sabathi likes to say, “are a bit like myself: complicated.” His grapevines reward him of his hard work on the steep slopes around the year with healthy, ripe grapes in autumn; they give authentic wines that carry the personality of the winemaker within them. “When I make wine”, Sabathi once more conjures up the strength of intuition, “I always listen to my gut.” He would not be able to explain why he made this decision or that, let alone his underlying beliefs: “It is like I’m watching a film that I am part of.”

Hannes strives to produce a very traditional Sauvignon Blanc and uses a native yeast fermentation technique he picked up in Germany. In order to use native yeasts throughout the winemaking process he takes the first few grapes from the harvest, crushes them in a temperature controlled pot, and puts the juice in the vineyard to start fermenting. He is then able to use the ambient yeast in the fermenting pot to help inoculate and control the fermentation of all the juice at a much larger scale in the winery. For the Klassic wines aging takes place in inox, for the village wines in steel. The single vineyards it can be fermented in steel, concrete, wood, or a combination of any. The reserve wines are all fermented in oak. The wine is filtered through a fountain system of natural rock call kieselguhr. The little yeast or grape particles left after fermentation get trapped in the micro-crystalline rock structure and the resulting wines are absolutely flawless to the eye. The results are some of the best Sauvignon Blanc wines we have ever tasted. They appeal to every Sauvignon Blanc flavor profile; the aromatic intensity of New Zealand, the structure of France, and the ripeness of Napa.

The freedom Hannes Sabathi enjoys in making his wines is a rare luxury among STK winemakers. “I have less pressure on me than others to defend a tradition or brand”, explains the winemaker who joined the circle of STK wineries in 2012. He can talk endlessly about wine but always with a critical distance between the artist and his work: “To me, a wine must be challenging to taste”, he says, pointing to the STK wineries’ joint goal of striving for outstanding quality and constant progress, but at the same time warning against exaggeration: “There is a natural limit in the wine, where it unfolds to its fullest potential. Once you cross this line, you are approaching the artificial.”

That the wine from Southern Styria is not only a gustatory challenge is an additional motivation for Hannes Sabathi. The steep hills, the hard work in wind and weather, all this expresses the winemaker’s unique relationship with nature: “Nature will always have its way. All you can do, once in a year, is try to make the most of the situation”. So at least once a year the moment comes in which Hannes Sabathi seriously says to nature: “Listen up…”.

If you haven't had a lot of wine from here, don't worry the reason is simple. Styria makes 5% of Austria's wine, and Austria is about 0.6% of the world's production. It is one of the few net wine importing regions in the world, meaning they bring in more wine from the outside than they actually produce!