I fell asleep during the opening scenes of Terry Gilliam’s Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus just as someone I vaguely recognised trunded off on a horse drawn caravan. I blame a hectic day of reviewing the joys of the Qsine restaurant, a full meal in the Blu restaurant and one or too Bacardi and cokes in the bar. The mid afternoon wine tasting didn’t help much either. Even the staterooms (that’s a cabin to you and me) widescreen entertainment system couldn’t keep those eyelids open.

The Cellar Masters bar utilises the ‘Enomatic Wine Preservation and Serving System’ were you can serve yourself tasting samples, half glasses and a full-on glassful of various wines.
If you haven’t encountered the Enomatic system before it ‘dispenses wine directly, in a multi-portion fashion, direct from the bottle using inert gas preservation. The flavours and characteristics of the wine remain intact and you can be assured that the wines dispensed are fresh and flavourful, as if the bottle was just opened’.

While you are free to taste and drink which ever wines you like they have linked several into ‘destination wine tasting’ groups [Cellarmasters Wine Menu pdf]. So you could go for a Drouhin Chablis, Chateau Les Tuileries from the Graves, a Mont-Redon Chateauneuf-du-Pape and a Chateau Coufran from the Haut-Medoc under ‘Tour de France’ or a ‘California Dreaming’ selection that gives a Freemark Abbey Chardonnay from the Napa Valley, a Murphy Goode Fumé Blanc from the Alexander Valley, a Sequioa Grove Napa Cabernet and a Foley Vineyards Pinot Noir. The Exploring Down Under selection is good offering a Brancott Reserve Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand, A Leasingham Riesling, a Norman Estates Shiraz and a Grove Mill Pinot Noir. Each of these flights are available at US$15 for a 2oz serving. A nice way to explore new wines before settling on a wine to drink a full glass of…

A couple of interesting (ie not tried before) wines were available during the two-nighter cruise; all twittered of course, although a couple exceeded the 140 character limit…

wine_scribbler: Wild Rock Sauvignon 07 marlborough a sandwich filling of lemon slices & grapefruit skins gently pressed to a smooth paste, pressed until the pips burst


wine_scribbler: Automoto 07 California Chardonnay smooth as a beach heading convertable but note that lemon scratch on the rear fender. Simple to repair.



wine_scribbler: Murphy Goode Cabernet 06 Alexander valley in celebrity eclipse cellar masters bar. Straining blackberries through a used tea strainer, bits of leaf, seldom catch a rouge mushroom …



Incidentally the stateroom entertainment system includes a graphical location map – we went way passed the Channel Islands I believe – and full room service ordering. I did try and order a bottle of Louis Roederer Cristal 2002 (US$750 if I recall correctly) but the system crashed with an error…