Air New Zealand releases wine collection with pinot noir and sauvignon blanc

Air New Zealand Koru Lounges will start serving the new wine from March 2025. Picture / Nick Reed

• Air New Zealand has created a signature wine collection, available exclusively to customers.
• The collection features a sauvignon blanc and pinot noir and is called Thirteen Forty Five; a nod to the number of miles the airline’s inaugural flight from Auckland to Sydney was in 1940.
• The wines will be available on select flights, lounges and via the Airports Store from March 2025.

In July, a team of high-ranking Air New Zealand staff flew to Marlborough on an important (and delicious) mission; create the airline’s first wine collection. Sarah Pollok joined the team and revealed how it happened.

When I show my husband a picture of me carefully mixing raw wines alongside a winemaker in Taylor’s Pass Vineyard, he laughs. It is, I must admit, pretty ironic. Picture the quintessential wine snob, with a precise nose and bouquet of unusual adjectives to describe the expensive drops they enjoy and I am the exact opposite.

At a recent wine tasting hosted by a friend with an impressive collection, the group was amused and astonished by how I blindly selected the $5 cleanskin as a favourite above the $500 bottles every single time.

Yet, there I was, sitting alongside Shane Williamson and Matt Walker, (responsible for curating Air NZ’s lounge and in-flight experiences, respectively) and two winemakers; Villa Maria’s Tom Dixon, and Indevin’s Jason Cook.

The task before us? Create the airline’s very first wine range.

This isn’t the airline’s first foray into viticulture. In 2023, it collaborated with Villa Maria for a line of wines. However, this range is blended from scratch; a process I knew nothing about.

We begin with the Sauvignon Blanc. Like a wine tasting, everyone has six glasses but instead of holding ‘finished’ wine you’ll find in a bottle, we receive cloudy, lemon-coloured ‘raw wine’, which has been fermented but not yet fined or filtered. First, we must blend; a step I never realised existed.

The team begin by tasting three finished white wines before trying the raw wines. Photo / Sarah Pollok

See, although all the wine came from the same vineyard and grape variety, no two harvest years, vine locations or bunches ferment the same, meaning each “batch” has a distinct flavour. Blending involves selecting one batch to be the “base” and adding others to create aromatic or textural layers.

But first, we must taste each one and note the flavours. For 15 minutes there is nothing but a collection of crystal tings, swishes and splatters as people taste and spit the wine into small barrels.

Each glass tastes different but exact flavours evade me and I get the feeling “tastes good” and “not as nice” aren’t acceptable descriptions. Fortunately, I’m next to Cook, and like an unprepared student, sneak a look at his sheet, which is covered in words such as potpourri, capsicum and “aromatically expressive”.

Next, Shane and Matt discuss what type of wine they want to create.

“It needs to be a world-class example of a Sav Blanc,” says Williamson. “Something that’s really recognisably Marlborough”. The words “premium” and “high-quality” are thrown across the table.

Another factor few other companies would consider when creating a wine is how it will taste at 30,000 feet. The team knows it needs a wine that can cut through at altitude but also be enjoyed in the Koru Lounge.

After more swilling and spitting, six wines are whittled down to four and then three. We mix 75% of one, 25% of another, taste then adjust to 65%, 25% and 10%. At this point, awkward with my lack of wine prowess, I help Andrew Wilson, an assistant winemaker at Indefin, measure the portions.

Winemakers play around with different percentages of various wine batches to find the perfect blend. Photo / Sarah Pollok

Two more tries and the group lands on a blend Dixon describes as “very pretty”, which he clarifies is a good thing.

“For people who think a lot about wine, it’ll tick a lot of boxes” he adds. This is the other tension to navigate; a wine that winemakers love isn’t necessarily something the public will enjoy. It’s possibly why they ask my opinion on the final Pinot Noir blend, as someone who flies often but can’t tell a Château Lafite from a cleanskin.

After confirming it’s “bloody good”, Jason describes it as “sophisticated” and the blending is done.

The final steps are to add some sugars and blend it on a much larger scale, Cook explains.

Very little will change aside from adding some sugars, Cook explains. Then, it’ll be bottled and given a label that will be revealed in March 2025, when the two wines are rolled out in Premium Economy and Air New Zealand lounges.

For a limited time, the wines will be served during Koru Hour on select domestic flights or you can buy bottles exclusively at the Airpoints store.

Wherever you end up trying it, on a flight somewhere exciting or from a bottle purchased online, remember to give it a sniff, take a small sip and make a remark about the taste of dried cherry to look like a pro.