Ribolla Gialla Bianco 2015 - Radikon - Venezia-Giulia, Italy 50cl

Radikon is the kind of he kind of producer about which chapters are devoted to in wine books, such is their influence on the wine world. Orange wine to be precise. 
 
The winery and vineyards are based in the ponca rich soils of the north-east Italian region of Venezia-Giulia, a hop skip and a jump from the Slovenian border. Their modern incarnation began in 1995 when Stanko Radikon began playing with extended skin maceration of the local Ribolla Gialla grapes. Taking a single 225 litre oak barrel and fermenting Ribolla on skins for a week  provided a revelatory experience for Stanko, who virtually overnight changed the estate’s production from classic, fresh white wines, to deep orange. ‘For years, it’s as if we were just making rosé from the grapes of Château Pétrus.’

Ribolla Gialla is a local white grape with thick skins and the extended skin contact facilitates the extraction of phenolic compounds which simply didn't exist with their previous production. The farming is organic with a bit of sulphur and copper in the vineyard and they eschew inoculated yeasts and eschew temperature control, instead relying on the thermal qualities of the subterranean cellar. All fermentation is carried out in large oak casks for four months and then transferred into old oak where the wine ages for four years.