Wine at 39,000 feet

Air Canada has a new sommelier and a new line up of incredible wines served in flight

OK, I know this is going to sound pretentious.

But, wine tasting at 39,000 feet really is the best.

You see, on a recent Taipeito-Vancouver flight on Air Canada’s new Dreamliner 7879, my wife, Kerry, and I were fortuitously upgraded to business class.

Besides flying in your own pod with a seat that folds down into a completely lie-flat bed for incredible shut eye, one of the other perks of travelling in the front cabin is your choice of seven wines.

Air Canada’s new sommelier, Veronique Rivest, put the list together and refreshes it every few months.

Rivest is the owner of Soif wine bar in Gatineau, Que., just across the Ottawa River from the Parliment Buildings.

By the way, soif is the French word for thirst.

Rivest is the two-time winner of Canada’s Best Sommelier contest, has been crowned Best Sommelier of the Americas and came in second at the World’s Best Sommelier competition.

Since the winner was a man, she is the planet’s top woman somm.

Unfortunately, Rivest didn’t pick an Okanagan wine for the current line up, but she could in the future.

Thus said, my wife and I did manage to sip our way through the entire list.

Champagne Drappier from France was a very apropos welcome drink.

The Jurtschitsch Gruner Veltliner from Austria went nicely with the tuna appetizer and cherry tomato and artichoke salad.

The elegantly plated panfried sea bass was paired with Vineland Estates Select white from Niagara.

Running out of food courses to match wines, we took the cheese plate with a flight of reds — Vini Be Good Pinot Noir from France, Volpaia Citto from Tuscany, Italy and Masroig Rojalet Seleccio from Spain, and a port, Dow’s, from (of course) Portugal.

In the economy cabin on the outward Vancouver-to-Taipei we still had wine with our chicken in foil container meal.

But, there were only two choices, a serviceable red or white in one of those little plastic bottles.

Both are Paul Mas Les Tannes blends from France — the white a Sauvignon Blanc, Grenache Blanc, Colombard blend and the red a Carignan, Merlot, Syrah.

STEVE MACNAULL PHOTO Flight attendant Zdenka Sliz shows off the wines on offer in the business class cabin of Air Canada’s international flights.

PHOTO COURTESY OF AIR CANADA Air Canada serves good wines in both its business-class and economy cabins.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ENROUTE Veronique Rivest is Air Canada’s new sommelier, choosing the wine served in the airline’s business-class cabin.