How Aussie winemaker Ed Carr became a global star

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Tasmanian winemaker Ed Carr has become the first Australian winemaker to win the Sparkling Winemaker of the Year Award at the International Wine Challenge held in London.

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00:00sparkling wine is the glamour puss of wines it's the drink of celebration and the best sell for

00:16hundreds of dollars known as prosecco in Italy carver in Spain and sparkling wine in the United

00:24States Britain and Australia the gold standard is champagne from France for more than 30 years

00:35Australian Ed Carr has strived to match the French we just had a very simple philosophy sort of aim

00:45that we wanted to make a world-class sparkling wine not really realizing how long that might

00:52actually take South Australian based Ed has crafted several sparkling wine styles for the House of Aris

01:00brand since 1995 and his decision to only use Tasmanian grapes has paid off Ed is probably the

01:11single most awarded winemaker in the country of any genre style anything should we taste this Chardonnay

01:19yeah let's have a look Tasmanian sparkling wine maker Nat Fryer says Ed was already revered here when

01:27the big news came through last year naming Ed the international sparkling wine maker of the year

01:33first time's ever been won by non-champanois so someone from outside of champagne and that is

01:40astounding in itself he is for me the shining ambassador of what myself and many others are

01:48trying to do here on the island while Tasmanian sparklings can match it with the world's best now

01:54when Ed started in the 80s Aussie fizz was anything but premium the right grapes weren't being planted in

02:02the right places but the three varieties used to make sparkling Chardonnay Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier

02:10were just starting to be planted in cold climate regions we'd made sparkling wines from a lot of

02:18different regions throughout the mainland and Tassie but instantly Tasmania really shone to me it's

02:25fundamentally the Tasmanian climate really suited what we wanted to make the purity of the air the

02:32bright sunshine cool maritime climate and a very big range of soils several months after harvest

02:44it's time for the bench where up to 50 base wines are lined up for Ed to taste he decides how much of

02:53each he'll blend for each label he might use all three great varieties two or just one or add wines

03:01from previous years that's the real aim of our blending is to assemble wines to fill in the gaps

03:10that each individual wine might have so it's like a jigsaw really to put them all together to make the most

03:17complete wine that we possibly can Ed's 68 and not ready to retire like his sparkling wines age just seems to

03:27improve him

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