ANDERS FREDERIK STEEN & ANNE BRUUN BLAUERT
C’était Le Premier Jour Des Vacances D’été. J’avais Seize Ans 2021
Ardèche, France
This beautiful pétillant comes from a direct press of Chardonnay, Viognier and Grenache Noir from Domaine du Mazel in Valvignères, aged for one year sur lie before disgorgement. Pale, straw yellow in the glass, this is almost classical in style, with delicate bubbles carrying notes of stone fruits and minerals and a pleasant bitterness offering a little refreshment and intrigue.
Chardonnay, Viognier, Grenache Noir
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
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.
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.