The Australian – Wish Magazine December 2015
Angus Hughson
TIME TO SPARKLE
BUBBLY WINES HAVE A LOT MORE TO THEM THAN THEY’RE GIVEN CREDIT FOR AS A FESTIVE TIPPLE.
There is something quite bizarre about the appreciation of sparkling wines. While to craft a fine example requires absolute perfection in the winery and a forgiving season, the role of sparkling as an aperitif or drink of celebration often sees its quality ignored, if not entirely forgotten.
Yet great sparkling is among wine’s greatest achievements and the perfect harmony between science and artistry. The winemaking is incredibly complex and there are dozens of decisions to be made, each of which can dramatically affect the final outcome. The choice between a classic mix of pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot meunier or a blanc de blanc chardonnay style, and whether the wines will be fermented warm or cool, and in stainless steel or oak are just the beginning of the many options open to a winemaker.
Sparkling, more than any other wine, also requires a cold climate, but with enough heat in the season to get the grapes just ripe as the vintage is drawing to a close. So much so that there are only a handful of places around the world where the finest sparkling wines can be produced. Regions with the right conditions include southern Australia, northern California, Champagne and now occasionally England. And in the warmer of these climates it is the coldest and hardest seasons that triumph.
For Xavier Bizot and Daosa based in the Adelaide Hills it was the difficult 2011 vintage in which all the stars aligned. The coldest vintage in recent memory, which left many but not all South Australian reds without their characteristic richness and power, gave this label its crowning glory, in only the third vintage. Not coincidentally, it is a wine that bears many of the hallmarks of fine Champagne.
The Daosa vineyard in the Piccadilly Valley was planted 20 years ago by Xavier’s father Christian, who was at the time president of Champagne Bollinger. The vineyard was chosen for its relative climactic similarity to his home and planted with a wide variety of clones, including some from Burgundy in France. While traditionally a source of fruit for Petaluma’s Croser, in 2009 Xavier held back a little chardonnay fruit from his highest vineyards and the first vintage of Daosa blanc de blancs was born.
Unsurprisingly Daosa does share some significant lineage with Bollinger. Champagne Bollinger is well known as one of the few houses that still uses traditional oak barrels to ferment base wines. This adds a lot of cost, risk and workload to the production process but it can, when done right, also provide an additional richness and wonderful layers of complexity.
While the technique is seldom used in Australia, the use of old oak for Daosa and the stirring of the wine on its yeast lees has given it tremendous complexity, detail and integration with the high acidity of the vintage. Combined with the fruit from cool-climate chardonnay in a cold vintage, it has served to bring this wine squarely into the top tier of Australian sparklings.
The past two decades have also seen the rise of premium Tasmanian sparkling wine. At the forefront has been Arras, and winemaker Ed Carr. Arras was launched 20 years ago with the goal of showcasing the very best of Australian sparkling wine. While an incredibly bold move at the time, the wines still live up to that expectation, each demonstrating the precision of highly skilled winemaking plus the detail that comes from sustained effort in the winery — hallmarks of its winemaker.
In the world of top sparkling wines, champagne still rules supreme for its longevity and complexity. But for festive season drinking there is still plenty of pleasure to be drawn from locally made wines such as Daosa and Arras, which give all but the very finest champagnes a serious run for their money.
The above article is from The Australian Wish Magazine, the full article can be found here:
http://wishmagazine.theaustralian.com.au/444202/drinking/?
