SAVOURING SUCCESS The winners of our Cellars in the Sky in-flight wine awards are revealed

The competition was fierce, but eventually 2018’s best airline wines were identified – here we unveil the worthy winners

The bottles have been uncorked, the contents swirled and sampled, the scores counted, and it’s now time to reveal the winners of our annual Cellars in the Sky airline wine awards. Over two heady days in December, a crack team of some of the finest palates known to the wine world convened to find the finest bottles served on board business and first class last year. Tucked away in a room along a warren of corridors in London’s Grosvenor hotel, the intoxicating (quite literally) fragrance of wine heavy in the air, our judges – Sarah Abbott, Sam Caporn, Peter McCombie and head judge Charles Metcalfe – gradually sorted out the best from the rest.

For something that brings as much pleasure as wine, the judging process is a surprisingly serious business. I watch as the judges survey the line of bottles, the identity of each hidden by a black bag, and known only by a letter and two numbers (for example, FC1-2 means first class, flight one, airline two).

They silently fill their glasses, sniff the contents with vigour, take a decent sip and swish it around in their mouths, before depositing it into a spittoon. There is a lot of wine to get through and to swallow would be madness. Clipboards in hand, they jot down a few notes, sometimes returning to the same wine to reassess, focused and intent. A plate of water biscuits provides a bland counterpoint to the complex, often lingering, flavours of the wine.

MAKING THE GRADE

Business Traveller’s Cellars in the Sky awards have been running since 1985. This year, 33 airlines entered, with judges sampling about 240 bottles to find the winners.

The competition is open to any carrier that serves wine in business or first class on mid- or long-haul, with each carrier able to enter two reds, two whites, a sparkling and a fortified or dessert wine from both cabins. Although they can compete in as many categories as they like, to be eligible for the overall award of Best Cellar they had to enter at least one red, white and sparkling wine.

The tasting and assessment process is democratic. The judges blind-taste all of the wines independently of each other, each focused on getting through the flight thoroughly and efficiently. Once they have made their own assessment for each bottle, they form pairs and run through the wines, giving each a mark out of 100, to allow a more nuanced number that will enable easier compromise if required. That score decided, the group convenes to reach a consensus on a final mark.

While there is the odd difference of opinion, it’s rarely to the extent that one party thinks something rotten and the other exquisite. Nevertheless, it’s a case of majority rules. Where consensus cannot be found, the scores are totted up and the average taken.

“To be a good judge,” McCombie says, “you have to have a healthy enough ego to believe in yourself for the tasting to succeed, but also be able to accept the opinions of others.”

Abbott agrees: “It’s the wisdom of crowds. It’s tempting to keep going back to try the wines again, but the best method is just to concentrate and taste through. Your palate can become fatigued. So save tasting again for those wines that provoke discussion.”

WHAT WORKS BEST IN THE AIR?

Each year we ask the judges what is the best wine to drink in the air and each year we are invariably told that whites tend to be a better bet than reds. That advice seems to be doubly →

A producer’s second Bordeaux might work better at 35,000 feet than its number one offering

true this time – when I arrive on the final day of tasting, the judges are full of enthusiasm for the quality of the white wines in first class.

Chardonnay – so often an object of ridicule – is the star here, resplendent in its diversity, the only uniform aspect of the bottles being their quality. “I don’t remember such a high standard ever before,” Metcalfe says. “The rest of the world is beginning to catch up with white burgundy.”

Because of how altitude affects our sense of taste, white wines with gentler acidity and red wines with lower tannins work best. All the same, buyers also have to meet the expectations of first and business class passengers – a discerning bunch, often with predilection for the superstars of the wine world. So it’s a fine balance.

Bordeaux reds aren’t generally the best choice; softer, fruitier reds usually work better in the air. Airline buyers compromise by choosing riper vintages that cater to passengers’ demands while still pleasing the palate at 35,000 feet. A producer’s second Bordeaux might actually work better in the air than its number one offering.

The first-class reds are brought into the room, and the judges begin the tasting process again. Although little is said and faces remain fairly inscrutable, one can’t help but get the impression that the tasting of these wines isn’t quite as enjoyable an experience as the whites. “Red is harder to taste than white,” explains Caporn. In fact, the judges say that they preferred the red wine offering in business class.

It’s when the champagnes make their entrance that the air really electrifies; like the wines themselves, the judges become positively effervescent. It’s a tight field, and the group admits to having more difficulty spitting them out: “They’re all really nice,” is the plaintive cry.

HOW AIRLINES CHOOSE THEIR WINES

Rossen Dimitrov, chief operating officer of first-time entrant Air Italy, says: “In general, we assign more value to wines that can be easy to appreciate and pleasant to most people, even to those who don’t know anything in particular about wine quality.”

And that’s the point: the wines should be easily drunk. On an aircraft, it’s unlikely that a bottle will be decanted before serving to allow it to breathe, so if that’s a requirement for a wine to taste good, then it’s probably best enjoyed at ground level.

What you don’t tend to get in the air are the fine, fine wines. The most expensive wines served rarely top the £200 mark, and those are generally the champagnes. Which is not a surprise – as passengers don’t pay for the bottle directly, it would be somewhat foolish to offer eye-wateringly expensive bottles for which no mark-up can be charged.

McCombie says: “Some airlines can be ambassadors for their country, and as such will offer some local wines. The skies can be the showcase for some of the best wines, with fine examples from airlines such as Qantas, who very much see wine as part of what their country can offer.”

Dimitrov confirms this: “Key criteria are to select the types of wines that our customers expect, wines that come from a good or famous wine area, and wines that have specific quality accolades – for example, AOC, DOCG, DOC, IGT. As an airline that is proudly Italian, with a high proportion of Italian passengers, it is important that we feature Italian wines where possible.”

Mariya Stoyanova, head of product development for Jetblue, agrees. “Jetblue’s wine expert, Jon Bonné, selects wines throughout the world yet makes Californian offerings a focus owing to their enormous diversity – they are wines with nuance and complexity.” Turn the page to discover our worthy winners… →