Ten Things You Need to Know About Ed Carr and the House of Arras

Tasmania has become the promised land of Australian sparkling wine thanks, to a significant degree, by its championship both domestically and globally by the House of Arras. It is Tasmania’s most awarded sparkling wine producer, courtesy of an incredible history of wine show success, amassing 115 trophies and over 300 gold medals. House of Arras sparkling wines are benchmark, always, verified. House of Arras has achieved its exalted position in Australian wine courtesy of its winemaker Ed Carr, whose search for a true and grand Australian home for sparkling wine began in 1988.

1. Ed Carr saw Tasmania's potential before almost anyone else did.
He first travelled to Tasmania in search of new sparkling wine frontiers in 1988 – more than 35 years ago, and years before the island had anything like the wine industry it does today.

2. When he arrived, there was almost nothing to work with.
The whole of Tasmania had just 44 hectares of vines when Ed Carr arrived in 1988. Today it has over 2,700 – a 61-fold expansion. Carr's commitment to Tasmanian sparkling wine predates much of the industry that eventually grew up around him.

3. The first true House of Arras release came from the 1995 vintage.
That was the first Arras wine made from Tasmanian-grown grapes, and the true starting point of the label as it's known today.

4. Arras is approaching its 30th birthday.
Three decades on from that first release, House of Arras remains one of the defining Australian sparkling wine stories – three decades of one winemaker's largely unbroken vision.

5. The house style is built on patience most producers can't afford.
"The big thing for us is the age of these wines at release," Carr has said. House of Arras wines spend more time maturing before release than any other sparkling wine made in Tasmania – a direct, costly expression of Carr's belief that great sparkling wine can't be rushed.

6. Arras has changed hands more than once – but Carr never left.
The label has passed through the Hardy wine company, several iterations of the Accolade wine group, and now sits with Handpicked Wines. Through all of it, Carr has remained the constant, steering the wine's style and standards regardless of who signed the cheques.

7. New ownership has, at last, set it free.
That long ownership churn is the reason this site published a longer feature on the House of Arras, Arras Unshackled – under Handpicked, Arras is, for the first time in a long while, being run with the full backing its quality has always deserved.

8. The flagship wine is a precise, deliberate blend.
Arras Grand Vintage – the original wine of the whole range – is built from 65% Chardonnay and 35% Pinot Noir, drawn from three Tasmanian sub-regions: the Derwent Valley, the Coal River Valley, and the Tasmanian East Coast.

9. Dosage is kept exceptionally low.
Arras Grand Vintage is typically finished at around 2 grams per litre of dosage – a notably dry, precise style that lets the wine's own structure and fruit do the talking, rather than leaning on sweetness.

10. This is, by some measures, the best sparkling wine Australia makes.
House of Arras is Australia's most awarded sparkling wine producer, and a Mattinson 10-Star Winery. As I’ve said previously, House of Arras is the very definition of respected. The [2016 House of Arras Grand Vintage] – which spent six years on lees, and underwent 100% malolactic fermentation – is all the proof you could ever need or want: "This wine is as good as Australian sparkling wine gets ... it's nuts good … it’s top-notch in anyone's language, from anyone's country." Indeed. When we drink Arras we drink Australian sparkling wine history in the making.