DVERI PAX
Štajerska, Slovenia
An icon of Slovenian winemaking, Dveri Pax has been producing wine for over 800 years under the watchful eyes of its owners, the 950 year-old Benedictine Monastery Stift Admont.
Admont Abbey, the oldest remaining monastery in Styria, Austria, is famous for its Baroque architecture, art collection, and most notably for its monastic library – the largest in the world. Around 1130 the nobleman Rudolf Wittenswald gifted his southern-Styrian Jaringhof estate to the church, and Bishop Konrad I gave the entire property to Stift Admont. It was first recorded as producing wine on its lands in 1139, forming the foundation of the current Dveri Pax winery. An accident of history, the Jaringhof estate became Slovenian following the division of Styria.
Štajerska, as it is known here, is one of the most exciting “emerging” wine regions in Central Europe. Though wine has been made here since the 5th century BC, and the region had a reputation for exceptional quality through the period of the Hapsburg Empire, the quality wine of the region’s independent producers was lost during the era of collectivization after World War II.
