Meet Xavier Thurat, the Top Sommelier at Air France

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Meet Xavier Thurat, the Top Sommelier at Air France
The next time you fly Air France, look a bit closer at the wine list. Far from banal, it’s curated by one of the world’s top sommeliers, Xavier Thuizat, an industry vet with years of Michelin-starred experience under his belt and who, this year, earned the Michelin Guide’s Grand Prix in Sommellerie. And you don’t need to be in First Class to reap the benefits of his powerful palate. As of September, Thuizat is the first Air France sommelier to build the wine list even for those flying Economy.  Thuizat has earned quite a few accolades for his skills, earning the titles of Meilleur Sommelier de France in 2022 and Meilleur Ouvrier de France in 2023. But even for this expert, choosing wines for an airline offers its own unique challenges, chief among them the sheer volume required. Each year, more than 8 million bottles of wine (and a million bottles of Champagne!) are served to Air France clients. Compounded with other criteria Thuizat considers essential, such as the quality, sustainability, and authenticity of the wine – and, above all, its reflection of local terroir – this narrows the field considerably, especially seeing as these other constraints are typically “antonymic” to the sheer quantity he needs, he says.  Bar Les Ambassadeurs, Hotel de Crillon. @Lauren Luxenberg “You can’t get an AOC, organic wine from a winemaker – a small winemaker – and at the same time deliver 35,000 bottles to one client,” he says. “That doesn’t exist, or at least, it’s difficult. But at any rate, that’s my job.”  Luckily, he has years of experience. After working at such illustrious addresses as Bernard l’Oiseau and le Meurice, in 2017, the native Burgundian took the post of head sommelier at the Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel, whose cellar is one of France’s richest, with more than 2,500 references.  “My travels into France’s vineyards over the last 20 years are serving me a lot, now,” he says. “Because I’m still in contact with the winemakers.”  But sourcing the quantities he needs is only one part of the puzzle. After all, wines that sparkle in the Crillon’s dining room may be mere shadows of themselves at cruising altitude, where food and wine just don’t taste the same as they do with your feet firmly on the ground. Thuizat is quick to note that this discrepancy has nothing to do with the dish or bottle itself: “Wine doesn’t change,” he says. “We do.”  Jardin d’hiver at the Hotel de Crillon. Photo: Lauren Luxenberg Indeed, wine’s molecular composition remains exactly the same whether on the ground or in the air, but the atmospheric pressure and increased oxygen of the cabin means that drinkers’ palates and noses are dryer, translating to a lower capacity to discern nuance and aromas. “To compensate for that, for this lack of humidity in the air, I said to myself: The only solution is to source wines that naturally have a lot of aromatic intensity,” he says.  But don’t think this means the answer is bold, highly-structured reds. Tannins, Thuizat explains, are your enemy in the air, given their propensity for sapping the palate of its moisture, something anyone who’s drunk a young Bordeaux or an over-steeped cup of black tea can attest to. Thuizat himself witnessed the moisture-wicking power of this polyphenol thanks to researchers at the University of Bordeaux. 
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Lead photo credit : Xavier Thuizat @Victor Bellot

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Emily Monaco is an American journalist based in Paris. Her work has appeared in the BBC, Saveur, Atlas Obscura, and more. She is the host of the podcast "Navigating the French" and pens a weekly newsletter, Emily in France, with tips for dining (and cheese-eating) in Paris and beyond.