This Is the Most Incredible Wine Cellar at Sea

I didn’t board a cruise in Scandinavia expecting to learn more about wine, but that is exactly what happened. On trips ashore, I ate herring on a Swedish island, wandered through the fabulous Munch Museum in Oslo, and poked around the quaint old town of Stavanger in southern Norway. And while dining in Explora I’s six restaurants, I discovered the cruise ship’s extraordinary wine program. 

The restaurant concepts aboard the ship range from Marble & Co. Grill (think sumptuous burgers and four kinds of aged beef) to Asian-fusion restaurant Sakura (where I had fabulous cod and prawn gyoza and roasted Korean miso quail). At Anthology, where special guest chef Mauro Uliassi and his team were overseeing the maiden voyage, I had my epiphany. (By the time you read this, Explora Journeys’ head of culinary, Franck Garanger, will have transformed Anthology into an Italian fine-dining restaurant.)

Uliassi has an eponymous three Michelin-starred restaurant on Italy’s Adriatic coast in Senigallia, a small town with a growing gastronomic reputation. The food was exceptional: tender skewers of grilled squid, ravishing al dente pasta infused with fig leaves, tiramisu made with dark-chocolate ice cream. I was initially a little taken aback to hear that all the wine pairings would be from the restaurant’s home region: Le Marche is not known for its fine wines. 

I walked away from the meal with a new appreciation for that barely known portion of eastern Italy, having tried various fresh, herbaceous white Verdicchios; a delicious 2019 red of which only 1,350 bottles were made; and a sweet (but not too sweet) Rosso Passito, fragrant with orange peel and cinnamon, made from Vernaccia Nera, which turns out to be another name for Grenache. At one point, I looked out past a wall of wine enclosed in glass, toward the deck, and was startled to recall that I was actually in the Kattegat, a patch of sea between Denmark and Sweden, a very long way from the Adriatic.

As the cruise progressed, it became clear that the pairings at Anthology were not an anomaly: Wine on Explora I was almost as prevalent as the surrounding seawater. The four pools and bubbling whirlpool spas dotted about the upper decks all had a bar just a step away serving free-flowing Moët & Chandon Champagne or cocktails. Rod Smith, a Master of Wine (the internationally admired top tier of wine expertise), gave two excellent classes on board. The one on Italy — an ambitious topic — overflowed the allotted two hours. Smith’s other lesson ran the gamut of Chardonnay possibilities, from Blanc de Blancs Champagne in France to California, and included a delicious bottle by a personal favorite, lauded Australian producer Nick Farr (as far from the clichéd overblown Aussie “Chardy” as Copenhagen is from Melbourne). I had already spotted it on the fine wine list at an eye-popping price — eye-poppingly reasonable, that is. 

Thibaut Briançon, who oversees food and beverage services for Explora Journeys, has sourced some truly exciting and unusual wines, often from older vintages; they range from the relatively simple (several excellent white Riojas, an Austrian Grüner Veltliner, and an Assyrtiko, the minerally white from Santorini in Greece) to the very serious indeed (a page of top Bordeaux and an Antinori Solaia, one of the first Super-Tuscans). Briançon may, however, have trouble making these well-priced, hard-to-source wines last the journey. Another guest was so amazed at finding Ulysse Collin’s fabulous, tiny-production Champagne that he tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade staff to sell him bottles to take home. The story was the same after-hours in the Malt Whisky Bar: Over a dozen excellent whiskeys were included with the fare, a lovely range of very affordable single malts, and a mouthwatering private reserve for anyone thirsting for 30-year-old Bowmore or top-tier Cognacs.

Michael Ungerer, Explora Journeys’ former CEO, said that the 461-suite vessel, first of a projected six, aims to resemble a European boutique resort at sea, which is certainly ambitious: Resorts know that guests can always eat elsewhere. Explora I has succeeded in replicating that sense of choice, and nowhere more so than in the vast Emporium Marketplace, which has a sushi station, an oyster bar, a pizza parlor, and a patisserie with creations by a pastry chef poached from the Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong. A seemingly inexhaustible chef wielded his rolling pin over a mountain of fresh dough destined for the domed pizza oven behind him. A rotisserie spun slowly behind one counter, and a pasta maker pinched ravioli closed behind another. If it weren’t for the blue vistas beyond the windows and that late-night Malt Whisky Bar next door, with its walk-in humidor and leather sofas, the Marketplace would have borne a strong resemblance to Harrods Food Halls in London.

Does Explora I resemble a European boutique resort? Well, not exactly — but only because the sheer bounty on the ship and its range of cuisines (and wines) make even sprawling luxury properties look a little narrow in scope. www.explorajourneys.com