I'm on the distribution list of a NY wine store called Italian Wine Merchants and often the emails from owner Sergio Esposito contain lots of useful information. Today there was an interesting one on Radikon and their avoidance of SO2, a topic which is receiving more and more attention because of the natural wine movement currently picking up steam in France, where I am right now, so I asked for Sergio's permission to reproduce it here:
The Magical and Radical RADIKON
Where Forward Thinking and Tradition Align
February 26, 2009
A couple of thousand years ago, some smart Roman winemaker realized that the cleansing power of sulfurous ores might help keep his wine clear, clean of mold, and more stable. Since that eureka moment, sulfating, or the practice of adding sulfur at various stages in winemaking, has become fairly pro forma. Sometimes producers spray sulfur directly on the grapes to inhibit the growth of mildew and to keep bugs at bay; other times winemakers will burn a sulfur wick in partially filled barrels to hinder mildew and other bacterial growths; producers will also add sulfur in the forms of SO2 gas or potassium metabisulfite tablets in order to halt fermentation or to prevent oxidation in finished wine. No doubt about it: the judicious addition of sulfur has been a boon to winemaking. It provides the producer with myriad ways to control a process that often seems subject to the whims of Bacchus, or some other less kind god.
Of course, nothing comes without a price, and the addition of sulfur certainly has its cost. At its most dangerous, sulfites-the salts of sulfur that are left in the wine after the various processes of sulfating-can trigger reactions in asthmatics, which is why wines with more than 10 ppm or more of sulfites must have labels that read "contains sulfites." At its most flashy, sulfites can make wine taste acrid and unpleasant or make it smell like rotten eggs (sulfites come in two forms, free and bound; when you taste sulfites, you're tasting free sulfites because bound sulfites are tasteless and odorless). All wine contains some sulfites because they are a creation of fermentation. The problem comes when producers go sulfur-crazy in efforts to create wines that defy nature-and nature's unavoidable tendency to chaos and decay.
I raise the topic of sulfur, its uses, and its prevalence, in order to spotlight exactly what is so unusual about the producer we're featuring this week, Stanislao (Stanko) Radikon. Unlike every other producer we work with, Radikon does not add sulfur. Not to his grapes. Not to his barrels. Not to his bottles. Not since 2002, when Radikon decided to trust nature and himself to create unusual, wild, and unexpectedly alive wines. Radikon's faith has rewarded him with a cult following, but he certainly raised the eyebrows of impassioned skeptics. I know, because I was one.
In 2003, I was in Italy in one of my wine-finding missions, and I went to Radikon and tasted that vintage with Stanko, his wife and his son. I told him regretfully that although I liked the wines, I couldn't buy them because in my experience non-sulfured wines had a very short shelf life. Because these wines often don't fare well on the voyage to the States, they tend to be flat by the time they get here. I liked the wines-I really did-but I wasn't willing to take the risk that between Friuli and New York they wouldn't fall victim to instability and become unsellable.
Stanko looked at me and replied, "These other producers were using bad grapes, so they ended up with bad wine." Then he brought me to the other end of his small cellar where a large light green jug sat on the ground, covered only with netting so that the wine inside could breathe. He poured me a glass and told me that this wine had been sitting there for over a month. This was the wine he drank at home, he said, and so it went into this big bottle to be poured out as the family's meals dictated. I took a sip. The wine was as fresh and vibrant as the bottle we had just opened. Still, I remained skeptical. Maybe this bottle was an anomaly, I thought. I took home some bottles and waited and waited, and I let the bottles sit. After two years I opened a bottle and it too was fresh, alive, and wondrous. I realized what a horrible mistake I had made by being so cynical. I had doubted a great winemaker and I learned my lesson.
This week, I'm delighted to offer you the wines of Stanko Radikon. These are wild, gorgeous wines that will delight even the most skeptical of wine-drinkers. One bottle and you too will become a convert to Radikon's radical, and magical, thinking.