Soā¦I pretty well trashed this wine for its extreme VA/EthylAcetate. Excess EA in wine is worse than Acetic Acid (vinegar) becaus itās much more painful. Think smelling fingernail polish remover
vs. smelling vinegar. The level of EA in this Radikon was sooo high that I am fully confident that it was well above the 0.14% legal limit for red wines. It stung on the nasal passages and burnt going down the
throat, plus was slightly sweet. Just absolutely undrinkable it was sooo painful. I pour a lotta wines down the drain, not so much because they are badly flawed but because they are boring/vapid/bland.
But this was one of the most badly flawed wines I can recallā¦did I mention it was painful to drink?? I took the btl down to Pig+Fig for them to try & they both found it pretty vile wine & undrinkableā¦but didnāt really
explain exactly what the problem was to them.
So, after consuming a little over a cup of this wine, instead of dumping it, I stuck the cork back into it & dropped it off at the local wine shop (one of my favorites) for him to taste and confirm that it was
flawed, had an excessive level of EA, would then open another one from his shelf to see to see if they were all like this, and if this btl was not excessive EA, offer to replace my flawed btl with another good btl.
I had suggested that maybe I just happened to get a ābadā btl. Alas, that was not what happened. I am fully convinced he did not even bother to try the opened btl I brought back. If the other btl had this
excessive EA level, then I would hope he would return the rest to the distributor and ask for a refund.
When I went in a few days later, I asked him what he thought about the opened btl I brought in. He then proceeded to acknowledge that Iāve tasted a lot of wines over the yrs but that this was how Sasha
made the wine and this was how it was supposed to taste!! He then proceeded to lecture me that, even though I taste a lot of wines, I have no right nor expertise to tell a winemaker that he has produced a flawed
wine. That I should get down off my high horse and learn to be more accepting of wines that are ādifferentā and learn to broaden my horizons w.r.t. wine. Hmmmā¦ I try a lot of ānaturalā wines & think Iām pretty
accepting of a lot of themā¦maybe not like them but accept them for what they areā¦except for some of the extremely mousey/hantavirus wines.
Then what he said next really took me aback. He says that he, too, does not at all like this Radikon (no mention of the high EA levelā¦just that he doesnāt like the wine). Most of the reputable wine merchants I
deal with would not even think of putting a wine on their shelf they donāt like. Thatās the purpose of a good wine merchantā¦to connect his customers up w/ good winesā¦wines that heās tried & liked. At least,
thatās the way I thought it was supposed to work?? Maybe it doesnāt work that way in the real world. But I rely a lot on my wine merchants for advice on wines I might like. Mostly theyāre spot on. Sometimes
they make a bad rec & I have no qualms about telling them thatā¦from my perch atop my high horse.
Then the real kicker. A few days later I got an e-mail from him reiterating that this very high EA level is how this Radikon wine is supposed to taste. It was bttld by the winemaker, it was imported by the importer
(Louis/Dressner), it was sold by the NM distributor (PM Wines), and it was put on the shelf by him. After all this vetting by those along the line (who just happened to have a wine they want to sell), he asserts
āwhat makes you such an expert that you think you can cry foul on all those involved?ā. At no point in all this discussion does he mention actually tasting this wine and finding an excessive level of EA. I think I might
have enough tasting experience to recognize excessive EA in a wineā¦but maybe notā¦I admit Iām still learning about wine.
I sent a copy of my TN trashing this wine to the distributor, Louis/Dressner Imprts, and Sasha Radikon. And, of course, no reply from any of them. āOhhh, gawdā¦
yet another TN from that crank in LosAlamosā!!
Soā¦at this pointā¦Iām going to let this matter lie. Iām not going to get into a pi$$ing match w/ the wine shop owner. I will probably go back and buy another btl just to assure myself that I didnāt just get a ābadā
btlā¦that all the rest of the btls are equally flawed. Maybe this new btl will be totally drinkable & Iāll like itā¦or tolerate itā¦donāt know. But if it has an unacceptable EA level, I will probably share it around with friends to demonstrate
what excessive EA in wine actually is. I may just send some off to Leo/Vinquiry to have it tested for legality.
Anywayā¦I generally like the Radikon winesā¦or at least find them interesting. But Iāll be a bit more careful as to what Radikon wines I buy. And be much more reluctant to patronize this shop that
has no qualms about selling ābadā wine.
Which, of course, leads to the other thread I posted on about accepting flawed wines and the ānaturalā winemaker who wrote it suggesting that we accept flawed ānaturalā wines because thatās
how theyāre supposed to be:
Wine Flaws and Why You Should Embrace Them - Pix,
a viewpoint I have some difficulty accepting. But this Radikon was simply not a wine I could accept.
Tom (speaking from atop his high horse)