I agreed, and asked him to also choose two Austrian wines.
The proprietors eyes lit up.
He knew what to do.
Vines growing along the wine route in southern Styria.Credit:Kevin West
Out came a progression of beautiful seasonal dishes.
White asparagus with grilled romaine and diced rhubarb in a pool of pea emulsion.
A frilly salad of sheer carrot ribbons.
From left: Vineyard views from the terrace of Lilli & Jojo, a restaurant in Styria; the visitors’ center at Meinklang, a wine estate in Burgenland.Kevin West
Delicately poached salmon trout.
Jerusalem-artichoke sorbet with preserved quince for dessert.
As for the wines, there was a misunderstanding.
From left: The Styrian capital, Graz; winemaker Alfred Ploder in the vines at Ploder Rosenberg.Kevin West
The proprietor brought me two glasses for each course.
Eight fine wines in total, every one of them elegant and precise.
And from each pairing, without a doubt, I preferred the natural wine.
From left: Barbara Eselböck, co-owner of Taubenkobel, with staffers from the restaurant; a tasting at Gut Oggau vineyard.Kevin West
They had charm, individuality, dash.
They were fun, but not in the disheveled way of many natural wines Id tried in the past.
What have you people done to my palate?
From left: The Rosalia chapel in Burgenland, in southeastern Austria; a guest room at Vienna’s Hotel Sacher.Kevin West
Theres no going back, he replied.
Austria used to go all the way south to Trieste, one sommelier reminded me.
Resources, ideas, and influences from across the realm entered the countrys cultural DNA.
From left: Foraging for wild edibles on a pre-dinner walk at Broadmoar, a restaurant and inn in the village of St. Josef, outside Graz; Weingut Tauss, a winery and inn near the Slovenian border.Kevin West
Even more vivid than the regions history was the sparkling presence of nature.
Everywhere I was met with the bloom of health.
Graz was once an imperial city, like Vienna, but it has a distinctly southern exposure.
From left: Archaic Blanca, Ploder Rosenberg winery’s signature bottle; a dish of peas, potatoes, wild sage, and caviar at Taubenkobel.Kevin West
It was as the Hapsburgs wished.
In the 16th century they brought in Italian architects to update their drab medieval city.
Domenico dellAllio delivered them a colonnaded palace that is now home to the provincial parliament.
From left: Wooden wine casks in the cellar of Burgenland’s Lichtenberger González winery; Burgenland winemaker Judith Beck at the Karakterre wine festival.Kevin West
I ducked in to Gasthaus Stainzerbauer, a traditional tavern, for lunch.
Compared with lunch, this was Styria at its most natural.
Across the valley another answered.
From left: Joachim Gradwohl and Lilli Kollar of Lilli & Jojo; a carpaccio of kohlrabi and fennel at Lilli & Jojo.Kevin West
It was 4:21 a.m., and the skylight above my bed was open.
Among the chorus, a cuckoo called.
Somehow my head felt fine despite the previous nights many glasses of research.
There was no mistaking the Muster vineyards.
The Musters do the opposite.
They invite in unruly nature and encourage its residency among their vines.
I could distinguish a dozen kinds of rival wildflowers and broad-leaf plants in the thick grass.
Swarms of smaller insects, backlit by the morning sun, were snatched from the air by avian patrols.
If the soil is alive, everything works.
Another secret: he doesnt make the wine.
Im observing, he said in succinct summary of the entire low-intervention ethos.
We joined Maria at a table in the half-wild garden, and Sepp uncorked several bottles.
We can feel this complexity in the wine, he said, swirling a glass.
Its not a physical sensation; its just very fine, elegant flavors.
The reason had to do with politics, to an extent, but mostly with climate.
Styria was too chilly.
A warming trend reached a historic milestone with the perfect 1992 growing season.
Sepp compared the current climate conditions with those of Burgundy in the 70s and 80s wine-making Valhalla.
Breakfast the next morning was served outdoors on tablecloths the same milky blue as the bright, humid sky.
She moved among the tables in a nutmeg linen skirt, a picture of health and good conscience.
Roland had the acute, assessing look of a hyper-educated bird and sported a New Wave haircut.
In German, vineyard isWeingarten,a wine garden, Alice told me.
We do a lot of work for our place to be a garden.
For us, it is also a harvest to see the wildflowers and hear the birds.
Longtime customers had the opposite reaction when the winery first went natural a decade ago.
They fled, one hundred percent, Roland said.
In this region, people dont drink our wine, he continued, an edge in his voice.
The Tausses also faced scorn from conventionally minded neighbors who considered their nonconformist methods eccentric and possibly lunatic.
(Bonus points for naming Zweigelt, the regions other widely planted red.)
Each has its own history, which you respect, Lichtenberger said.
You dont have to raise the vines anymore.
But you take them by the hand and lead them your way.
We are a bit romantic, said Gonzalez of their passion for gnarled vines set in imperfect rows.
But when it comes to cellar work, they favor serious wines, meaning the opposite of funky.
What Burgenland has over Styria is scale its possible to go big on this flat acreage.
Like the Meinklang visitors center, Burgenland as a whole is well kitted out for visitors.
Lunch proved beyond a doubt how Austrian natural wines can pair with even the most refined cuisine.
Not to say they were entirely conventional some were still a little unbuttoned by the strictest standards of propriety.
An archconservative on an Austrian wine boards tasting panel might well have found fault.
It read: parker gave me 50.
Breakfast is served in the superb ballroom.
Gasthaus Stainzerbauer: A cozy tavern in the historic center of Graz that highlights traditional Styrian ingredients.
Tastings and guided visits are available.
In both, wines from Gut Oggau feature prominently.
