Natural Wines (or Orange Wines)

How do you make history take note of you? Remember you like one of her own? You rewrite it, beautifully of course, and with deep passion and love.

Stanko Radikon was a revolutionary winemaker, and a pioneering figure for the natural wine movement and now, stuff of legend.

Some whites referred to as orange wines (because of the color), are made without addition of any sulphur and with a long skin contact.

Sounds simple? Except sulphur is a critical stabilising agent and when you take that out completely, you make that already very difficult winemaking process incredibly, incredibly hard.

Stanko turned to tradition of what his ancestors taught when he started to work on this small 12 hectare estate on the Slovenian border of Italy and over the 36 vintages he presided over, refined every aspect of it to the point of perfection.

My favorite is of course the work he did on unique bottling of 1L so his wines could age well (borrowing from how magnums are considered the best format for ageing).

It seems that project led him onto a journey where he had to convince glass makers to design the special bottle with special necks to allow the special corks to fit in perfectly.

Thanks to Stanko, what he envisioned, is now for the world to taste, admire, love and collect.

The bottles have great ageing potential and are an absolute treat. In the glass, Ribolla Gialla made from Ribolla grapes is often described with citrus notes of lemon, lime and orange, very floral and deeply meditative.

Ribolla Gialla undergoes extended maceration in oak vats for 2 to 4 months before being left to age for 4 yrs in 35hl casks followed by 2 yrs of bottle ageing.

Sasa, Stanko's son, who trained under him for years, and led the winery together with him, took over the mantle after Stanko's untimely death in 2016. He is continuing the great tradition.