ANDERS FREDERIK STEEN & ANNE BRUUN BLAUERT
Comme un Double-Vitrage 2020 [50cl]
Ardèche, France
This oxidative rosé is a blend of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Sylvaner and Muscat harvested with the Bannwarth family in Obermorschwihr, Alsace. A true field blend, all varieties were picked together, left to macerate for around four days, then moved to cuve to rest outside in the elements for one year at which point the wine was racked to old barrels for a further two years of ageing, with no topping up at any stage. The result is a fascinating wine that in both perfume and structure, sits somewhere between white and red, with complex notes of red berries, dry spices and rose framed by faint tannins and a long, lingering saltiness.
Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Sylvaner, Muscat
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.