Qantas awarded best wines in the sky

Qantas has won five trophies at the annual Cellars in the Sky Awards held in London.

Qantas has won five of the 13 awards this year and has now won more awards than any other carrier for the fifth year running.

This year, Qantas has taken out the awards for Best Overall Wine Cellar, Best First Class Cellar and Best Business Class Cellar.

In the individual wine categories Qantas was awarded first place in Best First Class White Wine for Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay 2009 and first place in Best First Class Sparkling wine for Taittinger Comtes de Champagne2000.

Qantas Executive Manager Customer Experience, Alison Webster, said the awards demonstrated Qantas’ important role in showcasing the diversity and quality of Australian wine.

“We are enormously proud of our inflight wines. We are committed to offering the best Australian wines and educating our crew to become Sommeliers in the Sky to enhance the customer’s dining experience,” said Ms Webster.

“We pride ourselves on developing a selection of wines that celebrates both cutting-edge and classic wine styles, grape varieties and regions. This is made possible by the Qantas Wine Panel led by Vanya Cullen, Stephen Pannell and Tom Carson who lend specialist expertise to the airline’s award-winning position in the industry.

“Qantas invests over $15 million dollars in the Australian Wine industry every year, sourcing more than 250 different wines from more than 150 different producers, all of which complement Neil Perry’s menus on both domestic and international flights,” added Ms Webster.

Qantas sources wine from all over Australia and serves French champagne in First and Business.

The Qantas Sommeliers in the Sky training takes elements from formal wine education programs and equips cabin crew with appropriate wine knowledge to communicate to customers.

Qantas Frequent Flyers can purchase quality Australian wines while earning Qantas Points through Qantas epiQure, the online wine community providing members with the opportunity to purchase wine from our award winning wine cellar, invitations to dinners with globally renowned chefs and online forums to gain knowledge from industry experts.

Oneworld has won the Best Airline Alliance for Wine.

The Cellars in the Sky Awards have been running since 1985, recognising the best red, white, sparkling and fortified and dessert wine served in the air.