Oceania Cruises Launches Exclusive Gérard Bertrand Wine & Food Pairing on Allura
Oceania’s new wine lunch blends French culinary finesse with biodynamic storytelling at sea.
Photo: Pelle Martin / Unsplash
Luxury cruise clients increasingly want more than great food—they want stories behind the ingredients, a deeper cultural connection, and exclusivity. Oceania Cruises is capitalizing on that demand with its new Gérard Bertrand Food and Wine Pairing Experience, which debuted aboard the freshly launched Allura on July 18 and will roll out across the fleet throughout 2026.
The six-course experience, held in Jacques, Oceania’s signature French restaurant, is an intimate affair for up to 40 guests per sailing. But this isn’t just another wine lunch. The collaboration with Gérard Bertrand—a pioneering biodynamic winemaker from France’s Languedoc region—anchors Oceania’s push to create more immersive, educational programming rooted in provenance and sustainability.
Wines like Bertrand’s Clos du Temple Rosé and the cult favorite Clos d’Ora are paired with regional dishes like Ossetra caviar potato fritters and duck pâté en croute. At $175 per person, the experience is priced below comparable tasting menus at top land-based restaurants featuring wines of this caliber.
For advisors, the new offering creates a new platform for client enrichment: Bertrand’s wines are not only certified biodynamic, but also reflect a growing appetite among travelers for sustainable luxury. Beyond just tasting wine, guests are also learning about terroir, regionality, and climate-forward winemaking.
The new experience also complements Oceania’s broader culinary ecosystem, which includes La Reserve by Wine Spectator, cooking classes at The Culinary Center, and other pairing programs, such as the Moët & Chandon Champagne Experience.
With Allura marking the fourth newbuild in Oceania’s fleet—and the first to fully reflect the brand’s next-gen culinary ambitions—this experience signals a strategic move toward deeper cultural storytelling through food and becomes another selling point in a cruise market that’s increasingly focused on experiential depth.
