BEST BUBBLES

Tasmania is meeting the huge demand for sparkling wine by producing more bubbly now than it ever has before, and the experts from the French birthplace of Champagne are deeming it some of the best wine in the world

French champagne maker Cyril Brun deems our sparkling wines to be close to champagne

I t was just a passing compliment. But it’s a compliment that has Tasmania’s wine industry abuzz. One of the world’s top experts has likened our sparkling wines to the best French champagnes. And that expert is cellar master Cyril Brun – a fourth-generation French champagne maker, one of the true greats of the celebrated winemaking region, and a man who is typically hard to impress.

Brun is the Chef de Caves for Charles Heidsieck, arguably one of the most respected houses of champagne in the world.

When Brun makes comments about sparkling wine, people tend to sit up straight and listen. He flew to Tasmania for the first time in late July to be a part of a special sparkling wine weekend at the Saffire Freycinet resort on the East Coast. At the end of the weekend, Brun sat down with TasWeekend to reflect on his adventure.

First, he described Tasmania as a terrific, pristine and preserved treasure. He said he had been enjoying Tasmanian sparkling wine for several years after picking up some of our bottles in the UK. Tasmanian sparkling had great potential, he said, it impressed him. And then, he said this: “Every time I taste the sparkling wine from Tasmania I feel like it is the one that could be potentially the closest to champagne.”

“That is very cool,” Wine Tasmania chief executive Sheralee Davies exclaimed when told of Brun’s comparison. “It is a seriously, big compliment to Tasmania. To have that kind of feedback about our sparkling wine from someone from such a wellrespected sparkling wine region is very significant.