Among the dramatic rolling hills of Austria’s South Styrian Wine Route, you’ll encounter charming villages, well-tended vineyards, and cozy wine taverns serving regional dishes. In the town of Ratsch which nears the Slovenian border to the south by less than a mile, Tamara Kögl offers all of these delights including a range of excellent biodynamic wines.

When her grandparents took over a lapsed vineyard estate with its 350 year old farmhouse, they initially sold the grapes to other winegrowers. Then in 1993, Tamara’s parents tried their hand at producing their first wine and from then on, there was no looking back. After earning a degree from the Silberberg School of Viticulture in Leibniz, she interned with Franz Hirtzberger in the Wachau.

One of her first priorities upon return was to increase quality by switching to organic viticulture. Although the process added much manual work due to the area’s steep landscape, the change provided such good results that the estate began working biodynamically in 2019. All grapes from the 10 ha. estate are harvested by hand and fermented with wild yeasts.