The Morning Claret

Simon J Woolf & Friends on Wild and Wonderful Wines

ribolla gialla

Father and Son - Valter and Klemen Mlecnik
4 minute read

Refinement and classicism in Mlečnik Ana

One of the more popular questions I get asked in masterclasses is “how many days of maceration is necessary before a white wine becomes an orange wine?”
Mlečnik Ana is a great way to answer this question.

Stanko & Sasa - father & Son, October 2014
6 minute read

Remembering Stanko Radikon

Personal memories of orange wine pioneer Stanko Radikon, who passed away on September 11 2016.

Draga - Ribolla Gialla "Natural Art" 2011
3 minute read

A new generation in Friuli: Miklus – Ribolla Gialla “Natural Art” 2011

In November 2014, I met five winemakers at a small tasting in San Floriano del Collio. Quietly spoken and rather shy, Mitja Miklus from the Draga estate seemed to blend into the background. But this young chap is smart – he doesn’t need to adopt the bluster of a salesman, his wines do the talking quite well by themselves.

Hugh Johnson admires the colour and sheen that 6 months skin contact in an amphora brings
11 minute read

Tasting orange wines with Hugh Johnson

I’m not sure that I have heroes anymore – and those I once had were certainly not wine writers. That said, if I did, and if they were, Hugh Johnson OBE would be a candidate. Several of his books are on my Read more

Radikon Cellar 2014
4 minute read

Year zero at Radikon – Ribolla Gialla 1995

“The really big change was when I tasted the wine. It was something completely new, totally different and exciting. It made me crazy, just tasting it.”

This is how Stanko Radikon describes the life changing moment in 1995 which prompted him to change the family’s entire wine production to what we now know and love as “orange wines”.

Prinčič - Favola 2008 in the glass
3 minute read

Prinčič and the peronospera: A fable

You can tell a great winemaker not by what they produce in a good year, but by what they pull together from a catastrophic one. And it didn’t get much worse than Dario Prinčič’s 2008 vintage, where some 90% of his harvest was infected with Peronospora (downy mildew). Prinčič salvaged a pitiful amount of grapes, blended the entire output together and made a one off – the aptly named “Favola”, meaning fable or legend.

Le due Terre, Oct 2015
4 minute read

Le Due Terre – Sacrisassi Bianco 2013

It’s starting to become a theme in this series – edge cases which are not really orange wines. Take the sole white wine from microscopic but world reknowned Le Due Terre, in Friuli Colli Orientali. A blend of Friulano with 30% Ribolla Gialla, it has 10-12 days of skin contact. Yet it doesn’t fit the “orange wine” moniker in a stylistic sense.