The New Qantas Inflight Wine Selection

It’s never a simple task for a wine critic to comment on somebody else’s selection. So it was with equal parts of intrigue and trepidation that I approached the launch of Qantas’ new inflight wine range for domestic and international services, thirty wines chosen by a panel of four of Australia’s most distinguished and long-serving wine judges.

Headed by Len Evans, the team comprised Southcorp’s chief white winemaker Ian McKenzie, McWilliams’ chief winemaker Jim Brayne and Perth-based wine judge John Hanley. What appealed most to me about their selection was the number of wines chosen which tend not to conform with established ‘show’ wine styles, by which I mean that many of the wines displayed subtlety and restraint uncommon amongst those generally singled out in wine shows.

The new Qantas wines will be progressively introduced to Business Class and First Class services over the next 12-18 months. While passengers will readily recognise many names, they should also enjoy discovering more obscure wines like Iron Pot Bay Pinot Grigio, Old Kent River Shiraz and Lengs & Cooter Semillon.

So, as a form of introduction to the new selection, I will move through it grape by grape, pointing out the highlights as I do.

The only sparkling wine to make the new list is the fifth release of Cleveland’s Macedon Brut, Germanically labelled as ’95er’ to indicate that most of the base wine is from the 1995 vintage. It’s rather a wild, dry and yeasty wine with an underlying fragrance of delicate stonefruit chardonnay aromas.

As you’d expect, chardonnay, today Australia’s most widely cropped noble variety, is well represented, with eight very different wines. There’s a tight-knit, citrusy 1998 Premium Chardonnay from Andrew Harris at Mudgee, a lightly structured and lightly oaked wine drinking well now. Contrasting in its fleshy, juicy palate but similar in its restrained use of oak is Barossa Valley Estate’s 1997 Moculta Chardonnay, a typical peaches and cream style from the warmer Barossa climate.

The small Lower Hunter winery of Briar Ridge has consistently turned out supple, elegant and harmoniously balanced chardonnays whose peachy melon fruit qualities are enhanced by subtle oak and malolactic influences. The 1998 vintage, one of the greatest in the Hunter’s chequered history, has produced a delightfully generous and approachable wine. From the same region and maker comes the Constable and Hershon 1998 Unwooded Chardonnay, whose soft, creamy texture and ripe stonefruit flavours offer more length and generosity than do most unwooded chardonnays.

Three more traditionally made chardonnays, whose ripe fruit flavours and textures have been carefully nurtured in the cellars with oak, yeast and secondary ferment influences, complete the selection. Of these, Seppelt’s 1997 Corella Ridge Chardonnay reveals fresh grapefruit and creamy lees influences, finishing tight and crisp. A more assertive, overt wine is the Yarra Valley Hills 1998 Kiah Yallambee Chardonnay, with a sumptuous combination of smoky oak, ripe melon fruit and nutty, savoury finish. From the Padthaway region in South Australia’s south-east comes Orlando’s St 1997 Hilary Chardonnay, a typically generous combination of lemony, grapefruit flavours, assertive oak and zesty acids.

A rather herbaceous, ripe and tropical 1998 Verdelho from Margaret River’s Chestnut Grove, a refreshingly dusty and chalky 1998 Pinot Grigio from Iron Pot Bay in the Tamar Valley, a steely and lemony 1998 Clare Valley Semillon from Lengs & Cooter and a rather fragrant, estery 1998 St Helga Riesling offer interesting and eclectic diversity for those to whom another chardonnay would simply represent one too many.

Evans and team have chosen a diverse collection of red wines from the Bordeaux varieties, several from lesser-known cool climate vineyards. Of these, Doonkuna’s 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Canberra region, NSW presents attractive leafy, earthy influences and bright mulberry fruit, while Wildwood’s 1996 Cabernets from Sunbury, Victoria, is a little firmer, with spicy, if somewhat greenish flavours of red berries and plums.

They could hardly contrast more greatly with Geoff Merrill’s Coonawarra-McLaren Vale-Goulburn Valley multi-regional 1995 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, whose great depth of minty, cassis-like fruit has simply sopped up layers of chocolate and vanilla flavours from American oak. Coonawarra is well represented with Katnook Estate’s excellent 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon, Robertson’s Well’s herby and fine-grained 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon, Wetherall’s creamy, firm and leafy 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon and Leconfield’s thick, brambly 1997 Cabernets. An excellent wine from the Penfolds stable, the firm and merlot-dominant 1996 Clare Estate red, presents a long and astringent backbone and intense, musky flavours of small red and black berries.

Pinot noir is represented by a lean, fine-grained Gembrook Hills 1996 Pinot Noir from the Yarra Valley, whose cherry and citrusy flavours should build weight and impact in the bottle, plus a typically dark, firm and leathery 1997 Pinot Noir from Salitage in Pemberton, WA.

Grant Burge’s 1996 Holy Trinity blend of shiraz, grenache and mourvedre brings a rustic generosity and sweetness to the panel’s selection of Rhone Valley varieties, which also includes the smoky, dark and brooding Leasingham Bin 61 Shiraz Clare Valley, the Old Kent River Shiraz 1997, the highly-decorated Orlando Centenary Hill Barossa Shiraz 1994 and the Pertaringa Shiraz 1997. Tyrrell’s fleshy, and very elegant 1996 Vat 8 Shiraz Cabernet, a blend of Hunter shiraz and Coonawarra cabernet, is another worthy inclusion.


Jeremy Oliver’s Top Four Qantas Wines

Katnook Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 1997

Katnook Estate has continued its remarkable run of Cabernet Sauvignon in the 1990s with a finely crafted wine whose heady aroma of violets, blackcurrants and cedar oak precede a long, restrained palate of great elegance and style. Very ripe and concentrated, it’s a classic Coonawarra from a great year.


Old Kent River Shiraz 1997

The Frankland River area at the north of WA’s Great Southern region has proven capable of unearthing some of Australia’s most exotically flavoured, peppery and spicy shirazes and this wine is no exception. Medium in weight, with a long and intensely flavoured palate, its leathery, stony qualities underpin sweet cherry and red berry fruit.

Orlando Centenary Hill Barossa Shiraz 1994

Fine-grained and minty, this is a spicy, smooth shiraz whose sweet core of ripe redcurrants and cassis has been deftly married with creamy and chocolate oak. Sourced from a mature single Barossa vineyard, this silky wine was regularly pumped over during fermentation and its entire pressings component was returned to the wine, after which it received 18 months in small American oak.

Pertaringa Shiraz 1997

Another wild, brambly, spicy and savoury wine, sourced from a relatively cool, but well-exposed vineyard in the foothills behind McLaren Vale, it easily carries its warm spirity influences with rich, ripe flavours of plums and red berries. Please login to post comment