WINE PICKS
The end of winter sports has meant the bright, new season for other more important matters, such as pouring a glass of fizz and soaking in the sunshine, is here.
The quality today of our best home-grown, traditional method, bottle-fermented styles is better than ever as we see longer bottle-age times and a further focus on individual vintage releases.
Higher quality sparklings take on a range of sophisticated flavours and textures as they age in individual bottles with the breakdown of fermentation yeasts and the maturing of fruit notes reacting and developing unique bread and bun characters as well as creamier citrus senses, but while retaining extraordinary freshness due to the style’s natural acidity. The longer the yeast lees are left in the bottle, the more complex the character development.
The hero in this sector is undoubtedly Accolade Wine chief sparkling winemaker Ed Carr, who drives the highly respected Tasmanian-based House of Arras range of sparklings with the dream of making these not only as desirable but also as delicious as any of the major champagne houses.
The build-up of aged stock under the Arras umbrella is crucial to the wines offering greater complexity and style, Carr says.
“I think there’s a trend for Aussie sparkling to get older,” says Carr. “It’s a good thing, whether it’s Arras or anybody else, that more houses are keeping older wines and now are able to release museum bottles.”
The missing link in Australian sparkling’s progress has been the capacity to release wines with similar maturity to even the most popular, mass-market, current-release champagnes, Carr says.
“If you want to be in that game then you have to do that.”
The response to this is for Carr and Arras to embark on a more intense museum-release program above and beyond the set they already offer, which starts with the Arras Brut Elite Cuvee 1301 ($50), the core of which is 2013 vintage with gorgeous white floral, even rose petal, and apple and grapefruit characters.
At the other end of the scale, an Arras EJ Carr 2001 Late Disgorged in magnum (1.5L) format ($399) has joined the latest 2003-version, 750ml-size of that style, the older wine unbelievably fresh with great minerally tension.
More museum releases are due before Christmas. They are stunners and raise Australian sparkling wines to new heights of excellence.