A significant figure in the Australian sparkling wine landscape, House of Arras Chief Winemaker, Ed Carr, spoke to National Liquor News about what drew him to making sparkling wine in Tasmania, the importance of maintaining a house style, and what makes House of Arras unique.
Carr was recently named Sparkling Winemaker of the Year at the International Wine Challenge, becoming the first Australian to do so, and only the second winemaker outside of Champagne to hold the title.
With a background in food microbiology, Carr first entered the wine industry through quality insurance, working in a winery laboratory.
“Because it was a small winery, a lot of the winemaking process was open for me to see, and I became more involved in wine from there, just out of interest. The winery also made a fair bit of sparkling at that stage, so it was a natural progression from quality assurance into general winemaking, and then into sparkling winemaking,” he said.
When Carr first became involved in sparkling winemaking in the 1980s, the Australian industry was undergoing a significant evolution.
“At the time, sparkling winemaking was looking more at cold climate vineyards, with grape varietals like Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier being planted in these cold climate vineyard sites. In the wine industry in general, there was also a lot more focus on making premium sparkling wine, and I felt that that was challenging and exciting. There were opportunities to really evolve the quality and styles of Australian sparkling that hadn’t existed in the past.”
A Tasmanian focus
House of Arras’s Tasmanian identity is of key importance to the label, and Carr explained that the decision to focus on that region was a carefully considered one.
“My first trip to Tasmania was in 1988 and there was a humble 44 hectares of area under vine at that stage. Now it’s somewhere around about 2,500 hectares. The drive into Tasmanian viticulture and wine since those very early pioneering days has really been amazing. I think we’re now seeing a great range of wines, cold climate wines, coming out of Tasmania with very different styles.
“We had to choose a style when we started. In 1995, we looked at a lot of different cold climate regions available in Australia from altitude or latitude, and we didn’t understand the science of it at the time, but vineyards with higher latitude, further south, produce the more supple style of wine that we like to make,” he said.
As House of Arras takes its name from another word for tapestry, Carr said that the winery’s mission is to weave together different Tasmanian subregions in its wines.
“In the early days, we weren’t sure whether House of Arras would be an entirely Tasmanian label. We felt that there were opportunities to blend across Australia and produce a stronger style, but from our very early beginnings, we found that Tasmania wasn’t one region. There are multiple sub regions in Tasmania, and we’ve spent the last nearly 30 years sharing different vineyards in the different sub regions.”
The importance of house style
For Carr, the secret to House of Arras’s success is its winemaking style, and he believes his strength as a winemaker is his ability to remain true to this style.
“A winemaker is there to recognise quality and direction, both in the vineyard and in the winery, and direct all the winemaking procedures towards the style that you want to make. House of Arras isn’t the only good sparkling wine coming out of Tasmania, but it is certainly unique in style, because other winemakers have chosen to go in other directions,” he said.
The House of Arras house style is primarily defined by Tasmanian fruit, as well as a percentage of young French oak barrels, and generally low sugar content across the range.
“Everything you do in the vineyard and the winery has a cumulative effect on the wine style. There are so many different influences that have a part in the final wine that you make, so over the years, you evolve into certain practices, both in the vineyard and the winery, and they ultimately express themselves in the glass that you release,” Carr said.
Another key element of House of Arras wines is their ageability, which Carr sees as a testament to the winemaking process.
Well-deserved recognition
Throughout his career, Carr has received a number of accolades, including Gourmet Traveller Winemaker of the Year in 2011, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Champagne and Sparkling Wine World Championships in London in 2018.
For Carr, these awards are evidence of the quality of the wine made by House of Arras.
“All of these awards build support for what we’re doing, and even though some of them are more personal awards, rather than just for the wines, it’s all part of that endorsement process, that we think we’re doing the right thing, and others think that too,” he said.
Awards such as the IWC Sparkling Winemaker of the Year award also give consumers greater confidence in the House of Arras label, Carr said.
“It’s a massive honour and an endorsement. It’s great to have these sorts of endorsements, whether they be the IWC or from journalists or wine shows, and to have that third party endorsement of your quality, because ultimately, they’re the people and the consumer that you have to please.”
The coming years
Currently, House of Arras is exploring the market for large format bottles, such as magnums, as a more premium option for its consumers, and may be investigating other vineyard sites in Tasmania.
“With House of Arras wines, we are really supporting and evolving what we’re doing in Tasmania. We’ll keep doing the same as what’s been the successful formula up until now, but also always looking for more subtle ways to improve the wines in the future. We’ll be looking at new vineyard areas within Tasmania and see how they ultimately fit in in the mix of blends that we have. Obviously, with climate change, we might be looking for more cooler sites within Tasmania,” Carr said.
On the winemaking side, Carr expects to continue on the current path, continuing to focus on the house style he has created for House of Arras.
“We don’t have any specific plans for the winemaking side, other than to be vigilant and do some further fine tuning, as we naturally understand the winemaking processes a bit further.”
