Austria 1910
Our club’s home is at the junction of four quite different landscapes, which have been invaded by the great peoples of central Europe either peacefully or violently for centuries. Each of the many tribes of Celts, Germanic peoples, Slavs, Awars and Bavarians has left traces to the present day, so that the population nowadays is influenced by all the important European currents.
The fertile land on both sides of the River Thaya has always attracted peaceful and violent settlers. People in the upper areas of Waldviertel and South Bohemia developed crafts and hand-skills early on, mainly in the textile trade. Especially in glass blowing their reputation was spread far beyond the region.
On the other hand the fertile loess soil of South Mahren and Weinviertel was intensively cultivated from early times. They were in great demand as the granary of imperial Vienna under the Habsburg monarchy. The vines planted in this hilly district are especially well-known and famous, where the grapes are pressed in the hundreds of wine cellars and stored in oak barrels.
Manfred Jasser:
Streets full of wine cellars provide the unique character of the Weinviertel area. The village next to the village and often far outside the village, village without a chuch spire and no chimneys, Wine presses squeezed together, cellar on cellar, colourful variety in an enclosed unity and here, the true, the real life of the vintner takes place.
Here, he does his work, an ancient, holy work, here he looks after the fruit, here he consults with his neighbour, here he tastes his own and the others’ wine, here he lives in the middle of his equipment and the old rituals, here he has brought together and consolidated his creative forces and from them he creates the culture of the wine cellar street.
Wine cellar streets, often as big as the village, exist nowhere else in the world, they are nowadays a unique, immeasureable cultural asset of the Weinviertel.
The towns of our area arose from the early settlements between the 10th and the 13th centuries. They developed in part from monasteries, partly from fortified castles which were constructed to repel the many invading enemies.
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