On Friday the 21st of January we are joined by Silvia Anthonj from MinZeven winery in episode 4, season 4, of our talk show Cellar Talks. Silvia runs one of the most exciting wine projects in The Netherlands and produces excellent sparkling wines in an unique terroir. Her sparkling wines are praised by both lovers and experts throughout the world.
About MinZeven
MinZeven winery is located in The Netherlands, at 7 meters under sea-level in the province Flevoland. This special project is the child of Silvia Anthonj, a German wine enthusiast and professional that decided to create her own sparkling wines in the Netherlands. Besides the fact that this country is not exactly known for their wines the exact location of the vineyards is even more surprising. At 7 meters below sea level the soils have been part of a seabed up until the 50’s of the last century. This unique terroir, combined with Silvia’s skills and choices in viticulture and vinification, makes a unique end result. Her wines go by the name “Bruut & Bruizend” referring to the historical history of the site.
The vines are resistant cultivars and have been planted in 2015, with the goal to deliver the first vintage in 2020, at Silvia’s 50th birthday. She succeeded in her goal, beating skeptics and releasing an excellent wine.
All wines are fermented with wild yeasts and produced manually according to the traditional method. The first vintage, 2018, was launched in 2020 with 12 months on the lees as the Bronze Edition. This spring, the first Silver Edition will go into sale with 30 months op ripening in the bottle. There is still a Gold Edition coming up – but it is still a secret, how long this treasure will be kept.
We recently reviewed her “Bruut&Bruizend” and you can find the review here.
About Silvia Anthonj
Silvia Anthonj is a German Wine Professional living in the Netherlands. From 2009, under the pen name Cordula Eich, for seven years in a row, she wrote and published the bestselling German wineguide for supermarket wines “Super Schoppen Shopper”, selling more than 250.000 copies. During this period she tasted, scored and described round about 14.000 wines from all over the world. For the last 10 years she has been teaching Wine Communication at Geisenheim University,
In 2018, she joined the core team of the Gault&Millau Germany and became responsible for the wine regions Mittelrhein and Hessische Bergstraße until 2020. Besides working as a consultant for different wineries, Silvia started her own winery, MinZeven, on the organic farm of her husband in the Netherlands in 2016, specializing in sparkling wines.
We are looking forward to talking to Silvia and learning from her background, experiences and the winery. Be sure to tune in on Instagram Live through our Dutch Wine Apprentice account on Friday the 21st of January, 19:30h CET.
Click here for instructions on how to follow a live show on Instagram Live. If you have questions for our guest you are welcome to prepare them and e-mail them to us or send them as a direct message on our Instagram account.
You can find a link to the recording of the show here.
