Probably pretty much everyone have heard about Zotter. It is one of the most well known Austrian chocolate brands. Zotter chocolate is organic, fair and the flavor combinations are literally endless. We still remember the first time we tried Zotter chocolate. It was ages ago, when our dear friend Sasha from Stuttgart sent them to us. Back then Zotter was not available in our hometown Belgrade, so we were tasting all the flavors with special joy. Chocolate is one of those things that we can’t live without. That taste and scent of cocoa, it is just… Well all chocolate addicts know how we feel about it. Needless to say, we were delighted when we found out that you can actually visit the Zotter Chocolate Factory. So one warm day in June, we headed there with our girl gang, to pay Mr.Zotter, the Austrian Willy Wonka a visit.
Zotter Chocolate Factory is located in Riegesburg, about half and hour drive from Gratz. It took us about 2 hours to get there from Vienna by car. We bought tickets online in advance, to avoid waiting in line. So we could indulge in our chocolate experience right away. The concept of the factory tour is to basically taste chocolate on the go, and see how it is made. We loved that there was an introductory movie at the beginning of the tour. As well as chocolate covered popcorn. Mmmm those were so crunchy and delicious! Be aware since there is no limitation of how much chocolate you can eat while the tour lasts. So our advice would be to plan your consumption strategically. 😀 You don’t want to get sick afterwords, do you?
For us it was really nice to taste all the chocolate treats during the tour. The only thing we lacked was more presence of the Zotter team, someone who would actually explain how chocolate is made and all those things. Of course, everything is written on information boards in the rooms themselves, but who can focus on reading, when your mouth is full of chocolate? You just hunt for more and more, like a mouse in a maze. Like in that ancient computer game Packman. Eating until you get to the end. 😀 Our favorite was liquid white chocolate… so so good, you got to try it! 😀 Our inner nerds only wish, that we learned a bit more about chocolate and Zotter during our visit, but everything else was really great.
Especially the surroundings. The factory is surrounded by a huge edible zoo, farm animals and wonderful nature. There is even a little pond, hammocks and a restaurant serving only the food which they actually grow themselves. There on the spot. We walked around, took pictures, waited for our turn to occupy the hammocks :D, and had lunch in the Zotter restaurant. You should not miss that gastronomic experience!
We know, now you are probably saying, how could they even think of food, after all the chocolate?! Well, the “zoo” is so big, that we managed to burn most of the calories and then it was lunchtime. 🙂 The food we had at this restaurant was great, and the service even better. We could not believe the hospitality and warmheartedness of the service people there. If someone from them ever reads this text, we can say that they really exceeded all our expectations. Anyone living in Vienna, well known for the grumpy waiters, will certainly understand why really know to appreciate great service.
Now in summer months and early fall is the ideal time to visit Zotter chocolate factory, which is why we decided to share this post as inspiration for a daily trip. It is impossible not to enjoy a day spent indulging in Zotter sublime chocolate and exploring the surrounding area. It is even better if you actually go there for a weekend, or a few days and stay in Graz, or somewhere nearby, so that you can visit more parts of beautiful Styria.
If you are interested in more blogger experiences about visitng the Zotter factory, you can check Michelle’s really nice post here. And for the rest, just consult their webpage.
Enjoy!
xoxo,
Una and Isi
PS: There is of course a shop in the factory, where you can purchase all sorts of Zotter products. They also make a great gift, especially if you want to give it as a souvenir from Austria. 🙂
Thank you very much for your visit and the blog post about your experience. Your photos are amazing!
I’m sorry to hear that you lacked the presence of our team while doing the tasting tour. You know, of course we offer some written information, video screens and even an audioguide (in 10 languages). But as you said, it’s really hard to focus and most people just want one thing: eating chocolate! My personal opinion is, that this won’t be much different, if we would offer guided tours, as people might be listening only with half of their attention … By the way, we DO offer some guided tours, but only for deaf people, as we have one colleague who is deaf too and came up with the idea (normally she works in packaging).
However, thank you so much for your nice words about our service team at the restaurant and once again for visiting. I’ll make sure they will read them 😉 Hope you will come back one day!
Best wishes from Styria to Vienna,
Florian vom Zotter Social Media Team
P.S. I lived in Vienna myself and totally understand, what you mean with “grumpy waiters” … haha! 😉
Dear Florian, thank you very much for you feedback! It is really great to see that you from Zotter read blog posts and care about experiences of your visitors. Sadly very few companies do that, so we really appreciate your gesture. From our part this was only a small remark (and also we understand why it is done that way, it is more about hands on approach and the chocolate experience. Your website provides more than enough information for further learning afterwards.), but we really enjoyed your factory. That is the reason why we also wrote this post, to share our experience and inspire our readers to visit you. 🙂
And concerning us, especially after receiving your kind feedback, we will definitely visit you again, when we are in the area.
Have a great summer and thank you very much for reading our blog post!
Kind regards to the entire Zotter team,
Una and Isidora