Producer Weingut Kögl

South Styria's steepest hillsides don't care much for five-year plans. Above Ratsch an der Weinstraße, the limestone-marl slopes of the Stermetzberg climb so sharply that no machine can reach them — everything here is done by hand.

This is where Tamara Kögl grew up, on her parents' mixed farm, with no intention of taking it over. The vineyard had other ideas. She became cellar master in 2010, converted to organic in 2013 — no small task in Styria's humid climate — and by 2020 had gone fully biodynamic.

Her turning point came after tasting a Pét-Nat made by a fellow Austrian winemaker. She realised she could never make traditional sparkling wine without sending the base wine off-site for dosage — but Pét-Nat lets every step stay on the farm. Seven years later, her Pét-Nats — worked by feel, vintage by vintage — are what the winery is known for: elegant, high-pressure, gently cloudy with yeast, alive.

It's this same limestone-marl soil, locally called Kalkmergel, that gives Kögl's still wines their signature tension and salinity — a mineral backbone underneath fruit that's never allowed to run soft.