i. Biography
His defining medium is ice cider, a style that is precise and elemental by design. Andreas Sundgren put the trade-off plainly: “I soon realized that it wasn’t really my decision to make. If I wanted to combine making wine with living in Umeå, I had to compromise.” In that compromise, the work found its terms: a way to hold winemaking rigor against northern conditions and turn both into a form that is distilled, luminous, and specific to place.
The Path
The structure of Brännland Cider has been built around a single long view: Andreas Sundgren has served as founder and CEO since 2010. The role is administrative on paper, but the craft behind it is slower and more exacting than a title suggests. It requires patience, conviction, and the ability to shape a wine program around conditions rather than against them. Umeå is not incidental here; it is part of the framework that gives the work its tension and its identity.
The Work Today
The definition Sundgren gives is stripped to essentials: “A wine made from 100% apple juice. Made in the same way as wine.” That plainness is the point. It leaves no room for ornament, only for method. In practice, the description places cider inside a vinous register, where apple, fermentation, and balance are handled with the same discipline expected of wine. The language is direct because the work itself is meant to be understood directly.
Signature
Andreas's signature wines include Brännland Iscider Barrique, Pernilla Perle, and Perle. Read together, they show range without breaking from a common method: clarity, depth, and the tension that apple-based wine can carry when it is worked with control. The names are markers of an ongoing practice rather than isolated statements. Brännland Iscider Barrique, Pernilla Perle, and Perle each carry the same underlying idea in a different register, and together they define the house style at Brännland Cider.
In Their Words “Cider is the word used to differentiate a grape wine from an apple wine.” “A wine made from 100% apple juice. Made in the same way as wine.” Taken together, these lines show the center of Sundgren’s practice: a refusal of fuzzy language, and a preference for terms that separate one material from another without embarrassment. That precision is part of the work’s authority. Brännland Cider is rooted in apples, framed through winemaking, and shaped by a founder who understood that compromise, handled well, can become a usable form of freedom.
Recognition
Andreas Sundgren has received SISGA 15, gold medal.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Andreas
What recognition has Andreas Sundgren received?
Gold medal at SISGA 15 (2015).
What is Andreas Sundgren known for?
ice cider.
