ANDERS FREDERIK STEEN & ANNE BRUUN BLAUERT
Bad Lighting, Call You Later 2021
Ardèche, France
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.
Merlot
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Anders Frederik Steen and Anne Bruun Blauert make wine 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 legendary Jura winemaker, Jean-Marc Brignot.
The couple and their young family have now settled in the beautiful village of Valvignères in the Ardèche, a beautiful spot amidst a wide, open valley. 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 the Ousrics in Valvignères and further afield with the Bannwarth family in Obermorschwihr, Alsace.
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 they do not seek to follow rules or conventions and do not feel the need to do the same thing every year. Instead, as they harvest, they taste the grapes and begin to imagine the kind of wine they might be able to make.
This refreshingly free, creative approach yields wines that are truly one of a kind.