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Tag: ribolla

Wine of the Week

Radikon at Bellies

Published 8. November 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Bellies is probably Norway’s best vegan restaurant, which focuses on natural wine. In connection with their 5 year anniversary, they had invited the iconic producer Saša Radikon from Friuli, for a winemaker’s dinner.

Saša Radikon

The staff at Bellies had made impressive pairings between their “full bellies” menu and Radikon’s wines. Jakot 2018, made with 3 months skin-contact, was perfect with a sauce rich in umami, where I normally would chose a sherry, just to name one example.

Oslavje 2017 with pumpkin ravioli

It was an unbelieveable line-up of wines, that included mature wines such as Merlot 2006 and Pignolo 2011. The evening’s revelation for me was the Ribolla 3781 in the 2007 vintage. Pairing-wise it was an easy match for this wine, as it was set up with a plate of mushrooms – and could have managed much more demanding ingrediences. Anyway, it gave the wine an opportunity to shine. And it did.

Here is some background. Radikon’s 12-hectare estate is located in Oslavia in the far north-east of Friuli Venezia, literally on the border with Slovenia. Radikon has a natural approach, where everything is done without the use of artificial or chemical aids. All grapes are harvested manually and fermented in tanks of Slavonian oak. The soil is called ponka, or ponca, very rich in minerals. It has a large proportion of gray and blue marl, occasionally mixed with clay. Deposits from old rivers and seas have produced a high content of lime. Ponka produces wines with both weight and freshness.

3781 is the number of the parcel below the cellar. The wine from here is produced only in the best years. It’s a varietal ribolla gialla, made with 3 months of maceration, then 4 years in oak and 10 years in bottle. It comes in a one liter bottle.

Ribolla 3781 2007 (Radikon)

The colour is golden with copper. Aroma of dried peach and apricot, curry and baked apple – almost like a well-matured cheese. Smooth in the mouth with high glycerin, rich, seamless, with an integrated acidity and great length. It has an autumnal air, still full of energy. This is a unique wine. It’s perfect, legendary.

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Wine of the Week

Italian-Slovenian borderline wine

Published 26. May 2018 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Our wine of the week 25th March was an Italian wine from the border zone of Carso. Here is a neighbour, from a Friuli-Slovenia tasting earlier this week. In fact Marjan Simčič’s winery is no more than 100 meters from the border. Another producer from our tasting was Radikon, only 11 km away, surprisingly enough to the east, because the borderline does a bend.

Furthermore Simčič’s vineyards are found in the Brda hills, on both sides of the border.

We are in a crossroads between the Mediterranean and the Alps. The Goriška Brda soil was under water in ancient times, and it’s today a soil rich in minerals.

Here the Simčič family cultivates the grapes the most natural way possible. They respect the vine’s natural capacity and are satisfied with a low crop, with the grapes on the vine as long as possible. The cellar practices are also deeply respectful of what comes in from nature.

Jožef Simčič was a pioneer in Brda. He bought his first pieces of land in 1860. Mirjan is now fifth generation.

They follow tradition and allow their grapes to mature, to produce a balanced aroma and a richer taste. No chemical fertilizers or insecticides are used.

The Selekcija is the second range of wines (the most expensive wines are called Opoka, only produced in special harvests). The Selekcija wines are selected from the oldest vines and matured slowly (2 to 4 years) in casks and wooden barrels of different sizes. None of these undergo filtration.

The ribolla grape is in Italian mostly called ribolla gialla, and in Slovenia also rebula, and other similar spellings. Typically it gives deep coloured but light bodied wines with high acidity and floral notes. It’s not unusual that it develops nutty flavours with some ageing.

We tasted three interesting wines from the winery this wine club evening. Here I chose the “selected” ribolla.

Ribolla Selecktija 2014 (Marjan Simčič)

Yellow colour. Aroma of mature apples, bread, herbs and white pepper. Rich and full on the palate, evident but rounded tannins from skin-contact, and a natural and integrated acidity.

Price: Medium

Food: Tasty fish and shellfish, foie, light meat

 

 

 

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