House of Arras Grand Vintage 2016

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Bottle of Arras Grand Vintage 2016 on a white background.

  • 2016 is the seventeenth release of Arras Grand Vintage; it was essentially the original wine of the Arras range.

  • It’s 65% chardonnay, 35% pinot noir.

  • Tasmanian sub-regions employed were the Derwent Valley, Coal River Valley and the Tasmania East Coast.

  • Dosage for this wine was 2 grams per litre, which is exceptionally low.

  • Longer article on Ed Carr and Arras is – here.

  • This wine is as good as Australian sparkling wine gets. It’s top-notch in anyone’s language, from anyone’s country.

  • RRP is $125.

  • Arras Grand Vintage 2016 could be the best Australian sparkling wine ever.

Forget the descriptors and just remember this: this sparkling wine is nuts good. It has spread, it has drive, it has nuance and it just out and out delivers. I love the creamy, leesy, honeyed rush through the grapefruity bite of fruit. I love the notes of strawberry, and crystallised citrus, and grapefruit, mushrooms, croissants and red apples. There’s a creaminess to the texture but it’s fruit flavour, both fresh and secondary, that motors this. I ended up just leaning back, staring out the window and admiring the view as I consumed this wine. As I did, I wondered: is this the best sparkling wine ever made in Australia? It’s definitely in the conversation.

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“When we drink Arras we drink Australian sparkling wine history – fresh, real, alive and magnificent – as it is being made. The House of Arras is the very definition of respected.” – Campbell Mattinson.

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House of Arras has been classified as a Mattinson 10-Star Winery.
Feature article on the House of Arras (Arras Unshackled) can be found here.

Campbell Mattinson

This article was written by Campbell Mattinson, founder of The Winefront and mattinson, and former chief editor of Halliday.

When you pick up a wine book and see thousands of top-scoring wines, it’s hard to know which wine to choose. Mattinson guides you through this maze, giving you an honest view of the best Australian wines, the best wine stories, the best wine producers, the best value wines and simply, the best tasting wines. Importantly, Mattinson will tell you about the top-rated wines and also about the underrated wines. In short, Mattinson knows Australian wines inside and out.

Mattinson has been a photo-journalist since 1987. For the past 25 years he’s been a voice that you can trust when you’re looking for the best wines. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award, and is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter. He’s not afraid to put a score beside a wine. But what he’d rather do, is tell you the wine’s story.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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