ANDERS FREDERIK STEEN & ANNE BRUUN BLAUERT
Whispering Smiles 2024
Ardèche, France
Chardonnay from the around 30 years old vines of Domaine du Mazel. As we do most often, the grapes have been pressed vertical over a couple of days, from there we left the juice to start its fermentation in cuve. After a week, we moved the now fermenting juice to 500lt demi-muids. In May 2026 we bottled with an interesting balance between the well-known and relatively serious minerality and delicate oxidation we achieve by not topping up the barrels, and the rich southern fruit and often quite lively acidity. This Chardonnay is a white wine, but due to a later and very ripe harvest, the long slow pressurage and the élevage in demi-muids and on lees that previously have held red wines, the wine has a deep golden colour – we love it!
Chardonnay
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.