Anders Frederik Steen "Bad lighting, Call you later"
Only 3 in stock
Grapes: Merlot
Region: Ardéche, France
Vintage: 2021
Viticulture: Organic + Biodynamic
Soils: Clay + Limestone
Vinification: 90% direct press, 10% destemmed grapes macerated in juice for one month, in fibre cuve and demi-muid
Fining or Filtering: None
Sulfur: None added
About the Producer: This highly original take on Merlot comes from fruit picked alongside the Oustrics at their Domaine du Mazel in Valvignères. The majority of the grapes were pressed directly, whilst a small proportion were destemmed by hand and left to infuse in the fermenting juice for around a month. After pressing, the wine spent a year resting in cuve, before being transferred to a demi-muid for a further year of ageing. The result is a crisp, pale and perfumed wine full of tart cranberries, blood orange and bitter herbs.
Anders Frederik Steen and Anne Bruun Blauert make their thoughtful and highly original wines from “grapes and only grapes."
Anders began making wine in 2013 when he first started purchasing fruit from winemakers he admired and making wine alongside his friend, legendary Jura winemaker, Jean-Marc Brignot. The couple and their young family have now settled in the beautiful village of Valvignères in the Ardèche. The many varieties grown here thrive on a perfect mix of clay and limestone and the vineyards are full of life, having been tended organically for decades.
As well as their own vineyards, the two also harvest grapes with their friends Gérald and Jocelyne Oustric of La Mazel in Valvignères and further afield with the Bannwarth family in Obermorschwihr, Alsace.
ANDERS FREDERIK STEEN & ANNE BRUUN
BLAUERT Valvignères, Ardèche
In his previous life Anders was both a chef and sommelier, working at the best restaurants in his native Denmark. This experience informs the couple’s winemaking, in that a little like a kitchen working with the seasons, they do not seek to follow rules or conventions and do not feel the need to make the same wines each year. Instead, as they harvest, they taste the grapes and begin to imagine the kind of wine they might be able to make. Layers of flavour and texture are brought about through slow presses, oxygen and canny blends.
It is a refreshingly free, creative approach that yields thought provoking, sometimes challenging wines that are truly one of a kind.
