Rasmus Aamand Olesen, a biology student from Denmark, took a year off from school to be an intern at Domaine du Traginer in Banyuls and never left. Rasmus grew up on a farm in his home country and married that experience with winemaking during his internship in 2016. 

Rasmus started planting vines in 2017 and is also rehabbing conventionally farmed plots and taking over abandoned vineyards. The wines are within AOP Collioures, a region co-extensive with Banyuls. Steep vineyards shoot up from the sea and local schist stone is used for the feixas (terraces). His cellar is a tiny garage in Port-Vendres, a quaint fishing village. 

Here is a snippet from Rasmus himself on why he decided to make a brandy:

“The idea of making brandy actually mostly came from a friend of mine. Being human means you do errors (like e.g. oxidising a white during bottling) and choosing to make wine with as little sulfite as possible means you are walking on a knifes edge when your standards as a winemaker at the same time drives you towards making ageable wines you can be proud of. Simultaneously I’m very much against squandering the resources of your planet. Even though I do my best to allow for as much life as possible to flourish in my vineyards I am still painfully aware that my actions are claiming a part of this planet which for a while will not be free to develop as its sees fit. Thus throwing good quality grapes away, because I’m trying to discover the boundaries of what me vineyards will ferment cleanly, feels utterly meaningless. So the brandy bridges that gap. For the most part.”