Flickering through my naked thoughts 2023 - Anders Frederik Steen & Anne Bruun Blauert

In the midst of the dynamic and collaborative viticultural and winemaking esprit emanating from the remote valleys of southern Ardèche, Anders and his wife Anne remain distinct among their peers in both ambition and approach. The undeniable individuality of their wines is a result of their deep commitment to their process in the vineyard and cellar techniques developed over 15 years in Valvignères, where Anders first began making wine with the enigmatic Jura vigneron Jean-Marc Brignot at a small cellar in the village in the noughties. Anders had met Jean-Marc during his time working as a sommelier at Noma, and by the time he had opened Relae and Manfreds as chef sommelier with Christian Puglisi, the seeds of this collaborative winemaking project had been sown.
Anders' path to wine was somewhat serendipitous, resulting from a brave decision he took while working as an ambitious young chef in Copenhagen. The bright lights of San Sebastián were an irresistible draw for most of his colleagues, with elBulli in its heyday at the centre of world gastronomy. Swimming against the current, Anders took a job at Noma as a sommelier. For the budding chef, bridging the divide between kitchen and service could only deepen his understanding of cuisine.
The timing here is important. Pontus Elofsson was the head sommelier at Noma at the time, and the restaurant began serving wines that upheld the philosophy already at work in the kitchen. Anders would never look back.
First splitting his time between Valvignères and Copenhagen, Anders became fully immersed in viticulture and winemaking with Jean-Marc. Eventually, after Brignot moved to Japan, Anders moved to southern Ardèche full time and was joined by his wife Anne and their young family, setting up in a tiny, 2,000-year-old cellar at the heart of the village. Initially Anders bought fruit from his neighbour and mentor Gérald Oustric and his wife Jocelyne, who had been farming organically in the village for 40 years and making wines in the way they learned from Jacques Néauport. Anders also rents a small cellar in Alsace, where he heads directly after the harvest in Valvignères every year, buying fruit from the Bannwarth family in Obermorschwihr. They now farm 3 hectares of vines themselves around Valvignères, growing on clay and limestone, with a small holding of Petite Serine growing on a vein of Marne Bleue that goes to their cuvée Les Vignes des Enfants every year.
In the vineyards, Anders is exacting, refusing to use sulphur or copper, preferring the lactoferments and tisanes he brews from local bush herbs and the seawater he collects from the Mediterranean. In the cellar, the fruit is most often pressed slowly over several days, with Anders determining how each portion of the press will be used by tasting the juice. Fermentation is usually started in fibre, and a long élevage in barrique non-ouillé follows, meaning many of these wines take quite some time to rediscover their balance and be released. The idea is to let the wine go where it wants to go, reading the cues he detects as they evolve over time and following along.
The results are breathtaking, peerless expressions of Valvignères and Obermorschwihr respectively, wines that remain true to the place they come from while taking an entirely new perspective on what is possible with the ripe fruit of southern Ardèche or the rich, unctuous fruit of Obermorschwihr. Often lightly oxidative and salty in expression, the wines have a complex structure that does not rely on acidity. Anders picks at the very last minute, prioritising phenolic ripeness above all else, building instead on a thread of saltiness and fruit drawn out over these long, thorough presses. Since expanding their cellar a few years back, Anders and Anne have moved to lengthen the élevage in their wines further. The results speak for themselves.

Historically overlooked and ignored, Valvignères has emerged as an epicentre for progressive viticulture and winemaking in the 21st century. Existing in the shadow of the hulking economy of the Rhone valley, the small valley west of le Teil made it's name when Gérald Oustric and his sister Jocelyne decided to cease selling their fruit to the local co-op(which Geralds father helped found in 1919) to begin producing wines themselves. Having farmed organically since the 80s, Gérald had been convinced to make his own wine after several trips to beaujolais in the early nineties, where he met Jacques Neauport, Jules Chauvet, Pierre bonneton et al. This move would have significant domino effects, with Gerald adopting Carbonic maceration for his reds, no filtration or fining, and no sulfitage in his cellar. this freed to small region from the shackles of the etablished wine industry in the region and reconnected with the valleys historical winemaking traditions(Valvigneres comes from the Roman Valis Vinaria, meaning valley of vines). Gerald would go on to mentor 15 growers in the region, cultivating a spirit of collaboration and sharing of ideas that existed few other places in France. The wines from cellars in this cluster share an iresistably heady, telluric, and deeply soulful quality that makes them great value and well worth exploring. In terms of Geology, we are almost in the south, but noticeably cooler than you might find just 20km south. Situated on what's traditionally known as the Bas Vivarais, the soils are predominantly clay and limestone, with outcrops of marne bleue and basalt

Grapes: Grenache, Cinsault

Region: Valvignères, Ardèche, France

ABV: 12.8%