Vino Bianco IGT Slatnik Radikon (Orange Wine) 2020

Slatnik Radikon 80% Chardonnay, 20% Tocai, 12 days on the skins, biodynamic wine, complex yet easy drinking orange wine. Radikon Slatnik for a wine of this complexity, you would expect it to be a little heavy going but no, you just can t stop drinking it, 20 mins and the bottle’s gone, fabulous stuff! I first drank it after having posed for a natural wine calendar in a 100% natural state! As you can imagine, we all needed a drink after posing nude and the bottle of Slatnik we opened took 5 mins between 3 of us. It is fantastic wine, rich and bold but as with all of Radikon’s wines, there is this vein of acid which makes it so fresh. With an open mind, you can drink this as aperitif, with any food, meat or fish, and with nutty Italian cheeses, it is excellent.

Radikon is a 12 hectare estate in Friuli on the Slovenian border of Italy, and is a truly unique winery.  It lies in the heartland of a region which has become synonymous with skin contact and Orange wine.

The king of orange wines as far as we are concerned is Radikon. Stanko Radikon lead this groundbreaking winery from 1995.  He revitalised skin contact for white wine and helped also pave the way for the natural wine movement.  He realised back then that the local indigenous grape, Ribolla Gialla, needed to be treated differently to other varieties.  He turned to his Grandfather’s method of vinification.  This involved seven days of skin maceration.  Stanko continued to experiment with this technique over the years.  He refined and perfected it along the way and also employed biodynamic principles at the winery. 

Today's classic wines made from Ribolla and Friulano have around three months of maceration, with long periods of barrel and bottle ageing.  These stunning bottles are in 500ml and 1 litre formats with thin bottle necks and corks.  Radikon believes these special bottles and corks help the ageing process in bottle.  These are wines which will age beautifully for well over 10 years.  Radikon also make a range of earlier drinking wines with a shorter skin maceration. 

The wines are truly fascinating, with unbelievable complexity, profound flavours yet immense freshness. 

Since Stanko sadly passed away in 2016, his son Saša continues in his father's tradition.  He maintains the same high standards and attention to detail.  Some would say he is making even better wine than his Father.