ABOUT

Despite its 169-year-old tradition of making high quality sparkling wines, the Slovenian winery Radgonske Gorice never really made its way to global markets.

According to Professor Ann C. Noble* from the University of California, even minimal exposure of sparkling wine to light can change its aroma for the worse, so we switched the entire sparkling wine production process from day to night:

• The grapes are picked during night harvest in night vision goggles.
• The wine matures in 300-year-old cellars located in natural caves, completely void of light, where the bottles are rotated using night vision goggles.
• The wine is bottled in 98% black glass and sealed inside recyclable black foil, shielding the wine from light. The rectangular black foil makes the bottle barely visible, and embodies the production process in complete darkness.

We called this sparkling wine Untouched By Light, and presented it and tasted it in complete darkness.

THE RESULT

• The winery came under the spotlight: 232 media mentions around the globe including The Washington Post, The Independent, Decanter, Der Spiegel, Forbes Russia and Wine China
• The interest of international distributors was sparked, and this sparkling wine is now sold in places like Casamona in St. Moritz and high-end stores in China
• The value of the bottle increased six-fold


“An exciting experiment” – Kurier

“Quite a story” – Decanter

“The most unusual wine I’ve tasted this year” – The Washington Post

“Unusual, innovative wine” – Forbes Russia


* Noble, Ann C., Sensory Study of the Effect of Fluorescent Light on a Sparkling Wine and its Base Wine, American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, Vol. 40, No. 4