Sky-high wines: introducing Cathay’s new Discovery wine series

As a premium travel lifestyle brand, we’re constantly looking at ways to elevate your experience both on the ground and in the air. It’s therefore fitting that our new Discovery selection of inflight wines spotlights premium Chinese bottles produced at sky-high altitudes, adding a memorable touch to your inflight dining experience.   

Our passengers are invited to take a tour of the Chinese Mainland’s dramatic topography, from the mountains of Yunnan to the hills of Hebei and the remote peaks of Ningxia. Along the way, you’ll learn how high-altitude vineyards battle the elements to arrive at coveted blends unlike those produced anywhere else in the world. “Three unique terroir expressions can be experienced through these wines,” says Ronald Khoo, Cathay's Wine, Spirits & Beverages Manager. 

These reds are produced at altitudes ranging from 900 to 2,600 metres above sea level, where the environment provides cooler air, gentler shade and intense UV light. The effect? Grapes with a deep colour, silky tannins and vibrant acidity. 

“Wines made at this altitude generally display purity of fruit and an elegant structure,” explains Khoo. “The grapes render high levels of tannins and colour pigments. All this results in a wine that maintains its freshness while it slowly ripens.” 

First class: a Grand Cru crafted in the Himalayas 

First class passengers can enjoy the fruits of pioneering Himalayan wine label Ao Yun, with a 2016 Grand Cru blend harvested from across four villages at different altitudes. These grapes – a mix of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Syrah and Petit Verdot – are blended at the vineyard’s base in Shangri-La, Yunnan, at an altitude of 2,500 metres, allowing the winemakers a better sensory acuity. The resultis a layered flavour profile, with aromas of raspberry and candied prune, opening up to a bouquet of black olive, dried tomatoes, rosemary, nutmeg and black pepper, plus hints of leather and tobacco.  

The wine was handpicked for Cathay Pacific’s First class inflight cellar by Khoo, who discovered Ao Yun after meeting the vineyard’s estate director and winemaker Maxence Dulou years earlier. “He let me try his wine and I was blown away by the elegance and complexity of it,” remembers Khoo.  

There are multiple challenges associated with tending the first wine estate in the Himalayas: the remote location makes transporting barrels, bottles and other equipment up steep mountainous roads arduous, not to mention the difficulties of hiring staff so far from any urban centre.  

Yet the greatest challenges are a result of the mountainous topography. The vineyard is split into different plots, each with their own microclimates requiring meticulous, hands-on attention – a total of 336 parcels subdivided into 773 sub-parcels – “and they manage the vines in each sub-parcel uniquely,” stresses Khoo. It takes workers the equivalent of 3,500 hours annually to tend to every hectare of land – a level of dedication that’s expressed in every drop of the Ao Yun’s wines.  

Business class: three vineyards, three expressions 

Passengers flying in Business class can sample two wines cultivated a kilometre in the sky. Grown at Vineyard No 16 on the northern hills of Huailai, in northwestern Hebei, at an altitude of 1,000 metres, Canaan Winery’s ruby red Chapter and Verse Mastery Pinot Noir promises intense fruit and oak aromas and a rich and rounded structure.  

Located at an altitude of 1,246 metres – in the shadows of Ningxia’s Unesco-listed Xixia Imperial Tombs – Legacy Peak is one of the Chinese Mainland’s few organic vineyards with vines that are nearly three decades old. The vineyard’s Lan Yu Marselan offers passengers aromas of violets, roses, blueberries and mulberries, plus velvety tannins with hints of fuchsia flowers, ripe dark fruits, liquorice and mocha. 

Meanwhile, on long-haul flights to London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles and San Fransisco, Business class passengers can sample a freshly released vintage Xiao Yun, the second wine from Ao Yun Winery. While Ao Yun is the winemaker’s Grand Vin, Xiao Yun was cellared in high altitude cellars for 10 years of refinement, and Cathay is the first in the world to share this wine with the world. Expect berries, violet, vanilla, discreet cedar and liquorice on the nose, silky tannins and refreshing acidity on the palate, finishing with a noble bitterness reflective of the label’s 13-year journey to harvest wine in the wilderness. 

Eager to find out more about Chinese wines? As the latest chapter in our ongoing Discovery wines series, these high-altitude vineyards represent just one aspect of the Chinese Mainland’s thriving wine scene. “China is a country with terroir that’s kaleidoscopic in diversity, spanning desserts, plateaus, coastal zones and high-altitude valleys,” adds Khoo.  

“Winemakers old and new are still discovering what grape varieties work well in different regions; it's very interesting to see how they continue push the boundaries of vine growing and winemaking. The unifying theme I would say is ambition – an ambition to carve out their identity on a global stage.”