1998 Venezia Giulia Merlot

The 1998 Merlot exhibits a medium ruby color and delicate flowers, herbs, spices, licorice and sweet cherries. Made in a deceptively medium-bodied style, it offers excellent length and plenty of detail although the finish is somewhat clipped on the back end. Radikon has come a long way in a decade. Subsequent vintages of this wine I have tasted from barrel bode very well for the future. Anticipated maturity: 2007-2013. Stanko Radikon's property is located is the hills of Oslavia, right in the heart of the Collio. Radikon is an intensely passionate, driven man who pushes the envelope as far as he can. Beginning with the 2002 vintage his wines are made with no added SO2 whatsoever, a practice virtually unheard of in today's world and a choice most modern-day oenologists would consider suicide. Frustrated by the inherent limitations of cork quality, a few years ago Radikon and Edi Kante began experimenting with corks made from abundant, high quality, but thinner cork not used for standard bottles. The new slender corks led to the scaling of the bottle size to match, and that led to the decision to package the wines in innovative 500ml and 1-liter bottles. Radikon and Kante believe another of the advantages of these bottle sizes is that they are also better matched to consumers' needs. For example, a 375ml bottle is usually not enough for two people but 500ml is, and the 1-liter size is better suited to four people than the standard 750ml bottle. Radikon gives his wines extended contact on the skins, with macerations often lasting more than a month. The wines are aged in medium-sized casks for about three years and are bottled without fining or filtration. When I drink these wines at home I always open them several hours in advance and often find that they improve significantly into the second day. The Ribolla in particular has enough structure to stand up to fairly robust foods. Like all whites macerated on the skins these wines should be served at cellar temperature or slightly above, but not chilled. The wines often show amber colors which may come as a surprise to readers encountering these wines for the first time. The richness - and sometimes cloudiness - of color should not be interpreted negatively, rather these are signs of wines that have been made in the purest, most unmanipulated way possible. Importer: Louis Dressner Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 334-8191