Radikon Merlot 2006

Radikon at its most singular. Dried mulberry, mulled cherry and blueberry sit alongside autumnal spice, herbal tea and damp forest floor, a bouquet that feels more like late October than any conventional Merlot. What reads as sweetness on the palate is really lively acidity animating the fruit, which shifts gradually toward zesty minerality, dried rose petal and a finishing note of sour citrus and honey. Thirty days of skin contact and five years in neutral barrique have shaped something firmly outside the Merlot mainstream, structured, perfumed and deeply idiosyncratic in the best Radikon tradition. Not for those seeking plush and easy; very much for those who know why they came here.