2016 might go down in the history of Styrian viticulture as a horror year. First, several nights of frost in April decimated a large part of the vineyards, then massive hail damage in August destroyed much of what little was left. In total, barely 20% of the usual crop could be harvested.
But what could be saved was of astonishing quality. Especially the basic wines often show an unexpected quality, probably also because some top vineyards were not bottled separately due to lack of quantity. Thus, some of the usual suspects are missing from this year's list of best wines.
In total, we have tasted around 300 wines from Styria this year. As always, you can find the best of them here or as a handy PDF to print. The headings are also links to all the wines tasted.
