Hello from Austria – Hiking through
the Vineyards of Southwestern Styria and a Drizzly Day of Relaxation
On a beautiful warm summer day and after a nice filling breakfast
we got going early yesterday to embark on our Sunday excursion to
the south-western part of Styria. I wasn’t particularly well-rested
after a full day yesterday
that included a hike, a local driving tour and a birthday party,
but I was keen to explore the area west of Leibnitz, Styria’s
foremost winegrowing region together with my brother Ewald, his
wife Anneliese and our friends Luis and Isabella.
The crew is ready for the hike
Distances in Europe are always on a different scale than in North
America. Southwestern Styria is only about one hour from my home
town of Weiz and nevertheless it is considered a different geographic
region from my home area of East Styria. Southwestern Styria enjoys
a favourable climate with Mediterranean influences and the temperatures
are on average higher than those in the surrounding regions. The
area is particularly well-known for its rolling hills, many of which
are used as vineyards for growing mostly white, but also some red
wines of the Zweigelt or Blauburgunder variety. The most well-known
wine of this area is called “Schilcher”, a rose-coloured
wine, whose special designation can only be applied to wines that
were grown in this particular area and made from a type of grape
called the ”Blaue Wildbacher”.
Styrian grapes
We stopped our vehicle on a parking lot just steps away from the
“Weinbauschule Silberberg” (the Silberberg School of
Viticulture). This particular schools features a 1.5 km long wine
educational trail that provides informational background about the
history of wine, about details related to wine-growing as well as
a collection of old wine farming implements and tools. A 5 m high
statue of St. Urban, the patron saint of the vintners, stands at
the beginning of the wine educational trail, and further up the
hill there is an oversized metal sculpture of an insect called the
wine pest that was brought in from France in the 1800s and almost
completely deciminated Styrian wine cultivation.
St. Urban - patron saint of vintners
We slowly hiked up on pathways along the vineyards and had a beautiful
view south, and westwards towards the mountain chain separating
the Austrian provinces of Styria and Carinthia. Schloss Seggau (Seggau
Castle), dating back to the 12th century, was clearly visible nearby,
a structure that was once used to defend Austria’s border
against invading Turks and Hungarians, but today has found new use
as a hotel and conference centre.
A view from the Silberberg vineyards
Once we reached the top of the hill we climbed up the “Kreuzkogelwarte”,
a lookout tower at an elevation of 496 m that provided a continuous
360 degree view of the surrounding countryside. North of us was
the provincial capital of Graz with a backdrop of the mountains
of Northern Styria, south of us Slovenia, and west of us the Austrian
province of Carinthia.
The Kreuzkogelwarte lookout tower
My brother pointed out a particular hill that also featured a vineyard
and was apparently the property of famous Austrian tennis player
Thomas Muster, who hails from the nearby district capital of Leibnitz.
Thomas Muster, a former number 1 player, was one of the most gifted
clay court players in the history of tennis and achieved 44 ATP
tour titles throughout his career during the 1990s. Today Thomas
Muster heads up his own fashion label called TOMS, runs a vineyard,
has gotten involved in the production of high-quality Alpine spring
water called TOMS Water, and not surprisingly, developed a tennis
racquet called TOMS Machine in collaboration with the Kneissl company,
released in 2005. A great tennis career can open many doors…
Another view from the Silberberg vineyards
We continued our hike of the surrounding hills and walked by a
so-called “Buschenschank”, a rustic local restaurant
owned by a vintner who is able to sell his own wine as well as a
variety of self-produced culinary products. This is a typical Austrian
gastronomic establishment that was originally limited to selling
only this-year’s wine and had strict limitations as to what
type of foods they could serve. Today, many vintner’s obtain
a full restaurant license in order to sell regular hot foods as
well.
Traditional vintner's tools and implements
After an enjoyable hike along the ridge of a vineyards we started
our descent into the valley and spent about 45 minutes walking down
a forest road and then headed into a cool forest that took us back
to our vehicle. A fifteen minute drive later we arrived at our lunch
destination: “Buschenschank Koschak” is a popular local
destination for good wines and excellent local Styrian food. We
had reserved a table and sat outside under trellises covered with
grapes and vine tendrils.
One of my favourites, a "Fritattensuppe"
It was seriously time for a traditional Styrian meal: I started
with a “Fritattensuppe” (a clear beef broth that features
thinly cut pancake strips), my favourite Austrian soup. Then all
five of us shared a big platter of Austrian Fried Chicken as well
as a Rosemary Chicken with Rice. Austrian fried chicken is very
crispy and less greasy than North American varieties and is a staple
of traditional Austrian Sunday lunches. Traditionally, the largest
meal is eaten at lunch time in Austria, although modern work routines
have changes the traditional rhythms of food preparation and consumption
as well.
Austrian fried chicken
The obligatory side dish is a mixed salad containing lettuce, tomatoes,
beans and other varieties of vegetables, marinated with vinegar
and pumpkin seed oil. Pumpkin seed oil is a popular Styrian speciality,
a specialty oil made from the roasted seeds of pumpkins. Styrian
pumpkins are unique: the seeds have lost their wooden shell due
to a mutation about 100 years ago and only a tiny silver-coloured
membrane protects the seed. This soft consistency of the seeds facilitates
efficient pressing of the oil. The final product is a thick, dark
green oil that has a nutty flavour and is used primarily as a salad
oil, but also to refine soups and other dishes. You can even get
a “pumpkin seed parfait” as a dessert, which is exactly
what my brother ordered after we were finished.
A pumpkin seed parfait
Incidentally, pumpkin seed oil is the only Styrian delicacy that
I buy in Austria to bring back to Toronto, or I might request someone
traveling from Austria to bring me a bottle. As a passionate salad
eater, Austrian pumpkin seed oil is my favourite salad dressing,
bar none. And just recently I found a German delicatessen store
that apparently carries Styrian pumpkin seed oil right here in Toronto.
So thanks to Toronto’s multicultural culinary landscape I
might actually be able to get my favourite Austrian delicacy right
here without having to beg an Austrian visitor to bring me a bottle.
After a great meal I got really tired, especially considering the
fact that I only had a few hours of sleep last night. I slept all
the way home in the car and once we got back to my brother’s
house, I crashed for a few hours. I woke up at about 7 pm, and just
before having a light dinner, I hopped on Anneliese’s bicycle
and went cycling for an hour throughout my home town.
Austrian mixed salad with pumpkin seed oil
Sunday night Austrian towns are traditionally very quiet since everyone
is getting ready to go to work the next day, so the roads were nice
and peaceful. When I came back my brother and sister-in-law were
ready to go to bed so I turned in early to rest up for today. Well,
unfortunately the weather today did not cooperate as planned and
the entire morning was grey and drizzly. At noon time I visited
my friends Andrea and Herbert, whose daughter Nina had stayed with
my husband and me last year to as part of her Canadian stint to
work as a nanny.
Andrea is the older sister of one of my best friends from school,
and I had not seen her for at least 23 years. It was great to see
her again, we had already chatted numerous times for free using
www.skype.com, and I knew she had the same love for languages, travel
and cosmopolitan thinking as me. She graciously invited me to join
her family for lunch and I was listening intently to Andrea’s
and Herbert’s travel stories from Rumania. Just in the last
few weeks they had spent some time in Bucharest and in Transsylvania
and learned much about Rumania’s interesting history as well
as about the tyrannical Ceauscescu regime. We all agreed that we
view traveling much differently as we get older, that today we really
see travel as an opportunity to learn and to understand the world
and its historic and environmental contexts.
A delicious lunch and a reunion after 23 years
We decided that we would jointly visit another local tourism attraction
tomorrow: the “Katerloch”,
a famous local limestone cave that is a popular regional tourist
destination.
After a little walk in town I met my friends Luis and Isabella
and their friend Wolfgang to play a couple of hours of tennis in
an indoor tennis facility. The tennis club also features a bistro
where we enjoyed a couple of pizzas afterwards and a beer. I thought
to myself “these Austrians know how to live”. None of
the Canadian tennis clubs that I have been at feature a bistro or
any kind of gastronomic establishment. So I realized these Austrians
have their priorities straight: you can work out and burn calories,
but you have to cap it off with a nice tasty meal and a local beer
because “Gemütlichkeit” (loosely translated as
warm cordiality in a cozy environment) is an important factor here.
An intense round of indoor tennis
After about an hour I thanked my friends for a great tennis match
and a cozy evening and headed back to my brother’s house to
reconnect with him and to rest up for another
eventful day tomorrow.
