Neumeister

In the southeast corner of Vulkanland Steiermark, close to where Slovenia’s northwest corner meets Hungary’s southwest corner, third-generation winegrower Christoph Neumeister farms 30 hectares of vines spread over numerous steep hillsides around his hometown of Straden, planted at altitudes of 340 to 380 meters above sea level. Thoughtful, meticulous, and articulate, Christoph Neumeister took over from his father Albert in 2006, when he was just 25 years old, obtaining certification in 2013 for the organic viticultural practices Albert had begun employing in the 1990s. Vulkanland Steiermark’s extreme inclines make machine work next to impossible, so not only is harvest conducted manually, but all tasks in the vineyards are completed by hand.