2006 Merlot

The Radikon family from Oslavia is an institution in Friuli and an absolute pioneer within macerated wine made from green grape varieties. Stanko Radikon, who unfortunately died in 2016 at just 62, took over the management of the farm in 1980 and started bottling the wines in his own name, where they had previously been sold in bulk. In 1995, production took a sharp turn when Stanko decided to return to producing wine closer to how his grandfather had practiced it: Long macerations (typically three to four months) in large open wooden barrels followed by three years of ageing in large Slovenian oak barrels and since 2002 completely without the addition of sulphur.

In the vineyards, the plant density is high (around 7,000-10,000 plants per hectare), which creates small yields but with high concentration and grape quality. Today, the work in the vineyard and the cellar is managed by Stanko’s son Saša, who tirelessly continues the vineyard’s uncompromising and qualitative agenda. He has also introduced a secondary line of wines (the S line), where the wines have the same basic DNA as the original ones, but undergo shorter macerations, shorter ageing in casks and are bottled earlier for earlier drinking maturity.

Radicon’s wines are extremely expressive, aromatic and untamed with a clear expression of the long macerations but always with an impressive balance. This is not wine for everyone, which is not necessarily a bad thing, as the quantities are small, and the demand far exceeds our annual allocation.