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NEWS | AWARD-WINNING WINE<br />
★<br />
AVAILABLE<br />
ONBOARD<br />
THE WINNER<br />
BY A NOSE<br />
It’s offi cial – we serve the best white wine in the skies:<br />
our aromatic Côtes de Gascogne is an award winner<br />
IT CAN TOAST a new business deal,<br />
take the edge off nerves or mark the<br />
start of a well-earned holiday. Yes,<br />
kicking back and relaxing with a glass<br />
of vino is a fi ne way to begin a fl ight. But<br />
even though you’re in the air, you’ll still<br />
want to drink something decent.<br />
Enter Louis Mondeville Côtes<br />
de Gascogne. It’s not just good, it’s<br />
the best white wine you can buy on<br />
any fl ight, according to a recent<br />
award from fl ight-comparison site<br />
Skyscanner. “It has a wonderfully<br />
exuberant aroma – one of those<br />
wines that leap from the glass,”<br />
says head judge Tom Cannavan.<br />
So what does it take to make<br />
a passenger sit up and take notice<br />
at 30,000ft? “It’s clean as a whistle<br />
and has plenty of energy in the<br />
mouth, making it quite a nice<br />
192 | TRAVELLER<br />
wine to relax with and anticipate the<br />
journey ahead,” explains Cannavan, a<br />
top wine writer, broadcaster and also<br />
frequent fl yer. He encouraged his fellow<br />
judges to look for a “genuine reaction<br />
to what they found in the glass, to<br />
concentrate on aroma and fl avour,<br />
and how much they would want a<br />
second glass”.<br />
Cabin pressure can dull down<br />
the taste buds, so wine available<br />
in-fl ight needs to be particularly<br />
punchy. This wine comes from<br />
Gers, a region of rolling chalk hills<br />
and coastal breezes in south-west<br />
France. Not a bad workplace for<br />
wine maker Thierry Coulon, who<br />
remembers easyJet’s visit to<br />
taste the wine, a mixture of ugni<br />
blanc and colombard grapes. “We<br />
tried to do our best to create a<br />
Aromatic, punchy, lots of sauvignon blanc-ish character with some pea-pod crunch and<br />
plenty of fruit. On the palate a bold, orange and grapefruit-fl avoured wine with a long fi nish.<br />
Wine maker Thierry<br />
Coulon and the<br />
grapes that go into<br />
the award-winning<br />
Côtes de Gascogne;<br />
below, the<br />
Gers region of<br />
France is cooled by<br />
Atlantic breezes all<br />
year round<br />
wine that passengers would enjoy. We<br />
thought it should be clean, easy to drink<br />
and fruity. Not complicated.” The award,<br />
he says, was a bonus.<br />
Two main factors give the wine its<br />
winning aroma. Fresh winds from the<br />
Atlantic roll over the vineyard year<br />
round, with cold summer nights that<br />
make locals don warm coats despite<br />
the hot, sunny days. The grapes do the<br />
same, growing thick skins to cope with<br />
the drop in temperature, and it’s in this<br />
outer layer that the aroma develops.<br />
During production, Coulon leaves the<br />
grapes in big vats for an unusually long<br />
time to ensure that as much fl avour and<br />
aroma as possible is extracted, and a lot<br />
of care is taken to protect the wine from<br />
the air, which can taint it.<br />
It’s time and eff ort that pays off . Once<br />
bottled, Coulon’s Côtes de Gascogne is<br />
ready to tickle the taste buds of easyJet<br />
passengers and any other experts<br />
who come to judge it. And now for that<br />
second glass…<br />
Gers is 95km from Toulouse, where<br />
easyJet fl ies to from ten destinations<br />
WORDS: MARIE CLELAND
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