Radikon

It might be redundant to call any one of the wines on the list unique. Uniqueness, like a translator choosing words, is relative. We focus on wines that are cultish. They will create a challenge both for the drinker and me. The challenge should be intellectual and not physical. And even though we feature bottles that are highly specific with personalities that are very diverse, we know that wine should be fun with dinner.

We stay away from international wine styles, avoiding mass production as well as any that try to fit a mold. Modern style wines are often rich and ripe, full of fruit, oak, and chocolate… but deficient in character. Very little distinguishes them from each other or their geography. Like the suburbs and fast food. Anywhere that milkshake and fry is going to taste the same. Fine for the three am desert interstate but no good for dinner.

A wine cannot lean solely on its grape varietals, natural process or artesian qualities. It must stand-alone. This quality maybe based in grape or geography but more often lies in mystery. The key to sustaining uniqueness, appreciation and reverence for a wine is the learning process. For example in my favorite geographic regions new grapes that I haven't heard often offer a new and more complex experience. In the Loire, the arbors grape is rare, and also known as menu pineau. Or in Piedmont the erbaluce di caluso grape is a fun muscat like grape flowery on the nose creating a easy to drink white wine… or a gamay from the south of Burgundy. Usually gamay is from Beaujolais and Loire and so we get to see how the grape functions differently.

The Radikon is radical. This area of Friuli is known for a group of back-to-the-future winemakers using very traditional techniques that are simultaneously cutting edge. Stanko Radikon makes his white wine like red. After the crushing the ribolla giolla grapes he leaves the skins in contact with the juice. This is a very old school wine making technique. And like any good cult leader he, and the people in his area using similar techniques, have followers. Abe Schoener of the Scholium Project in the states is now also making white wine macerated with the skins on.

Radikon has the most amazing cartoon sunset color, goldish brown with tinges of pink. Modern white wine is very clean and filtered for the most part. And it's tricky; if someone put a glass in front of your nose you would think you were drinking a fruity red wine. It has an apple-cidery, nutty, hay and yeast smell to it. You almost just want to smell it. It is wholesome and healthy in spirit and structure; the whole grape is in there. Only sold in a 500 ml bottle, Stanko thinks the Radikon is the right amount of wine to drink during dinner for two.

So you can drink two bottles at dinner and not get too radical.

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