It’s a regular day at the Il Palagio vineyards in Italy. Native Tuscan grapes grow on the vine across its 350 hectares, bottles of wine age in cool cellars and music vibrates through the centuries-old butter-yellow villa which presides over it all.

The person playing the music? Sting, who owns the vineyards along with his wife and business partner Trudie Styler.

If you’re travelling to Milan, you might have noticed we’ve added one of Il Palagio’s wines to our list: the La Regista 2019. Following a blind taste test with a panel of judges including Cathay’s Wine, Spirits and Beverages Manager Ronald Khoo, Master of Wine Debra Meiburg and the late wine consultant Roy Moorfield, the consensus was unanimous: Il Palagio’s wines are a perfect addition to our cellars – both on board and in our lounges.

“Our goal is to elevate our members' dining experiences and to do that, we consciously select different and complementing styles of wines to allow for this diversity in taste profiles,” says Khoo.

The journey to partnering with Il Palagio began when Khoo met Sting, Styler and their team at a performance in Singapore. “They invited me to try the La Regista 2019 and I was impressed, so I asked them if they would like to include the vintage in our Italian red wine tender,” he says. “We went through the usual blind tasting process and it was the best wine in the line-up.”

“We’ve earned our credibility,” says Tony Sasa, Sales Manager of Il Palagio. While having celebrity owners may help put a vineyard on the map, it’s been Styler and Sting’s mission to ensure the quality of the wines speak for themselves.

“Our first step is to demonstrate that our wines are good,” he continues. “When we talk about Il Palagio – it's organic, sustainable, in Tuscany's Chianti region and is close by Florence – if we put it all together with our celebrity owners, it makes a complete picture.”