Once you're done with airport security and settling into your seat, tough choices must be made

Unexpectedly upgraded to business class on a Monday evening BA-Comair flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg this month, I was faced with a dilemma that captains of industry, off-duty pilots and trolley dollies face daily: a glass of chenin or sauvignon blanc with the truly excellent squid dinner.

Back in poverty class, meals come from Woolies and are the best option available on the two-hour hop between the Cape and Gauteng. With Johnnie Black available gratis, only a serious wino or teetotaller would choose something else for their liquid refreshment.

One of the mysteries of SA tourism is this: when captive customers are prepared to pay to eat on budget airlines 1Time, Kulula and Mango, why is the selection and quality so poor? Surely, this is a golden opportunity for purveyors of chicken (think KFC and Nando's), while greasy fingerprints are easily wiped off those leather seats, on 1Time at least.

I was Capeside for the launch of the Aaldering portfolio of red wines, at a lunch hosted by proprietor Fons Aaldering at La Colombe in Constantia, which was recently hailed as the 12th best restaurant in the world by San Pellegrino. From eight factories around the planet, Mr Aaldering supplies meals to 70 airlines around the world plus ready-mades to thousands of supermarkets - a global network of nosh stretching from Thailand to Canada.

We both agreed that, while Luke Dale-Roberts's crisp roasted confit of organic duck leg, foie gras and pickled ginger butter with a hoisin dressing may not work as a ready-made, it was best matched by his intense 2007 pinotage. The herbal 2007 blend of equal measures of cabernet sauvignon and merlot was a no-brainer for the selection of French cheeses he had specially imported for lunch.

Back on BA, the vintage didn't help: both offerings were from the 2009 comet vintage. Producer didn't help either, as both hailed from Perdeberg Winery, fast gaining a reputation for its delicate, aromatic whites sourced from the sexy side of Paarl, ie the Paardeberg. In fact, Cape Point winemaker Duncan Savage reports they can't keep up with demand for Splattered Toad sauvignon blanc, which hails from these hallowed vineyards.

For lunch, I'd enjoyed a bottle of Andre Ostertag's riesling Muenchberg Grand Cru 2007 with my Strega pizza (chicken livers and onion) at Posticino in Sea Point, an establishment which inexplicably failed to make the list of Top Ten Pizzarias in the in-flight magazine, even though the 10 was actually 11, with one entry the entire Col'Cacchio chain.

The Ostertag was a glorious autumnal yellow in the glass, orange blossom and minerals on the nose, and delicate mango and peach flavours in the mouth, with a lingering aftertaste - the vinous double of the chenin (my eventual in-flight choice) in everything except price. Ostertag riesling retails in Alsace at around à35 a bottle, while Lawrence Jones, proprietor of the Troyeville Hotel, tells me Perderberg chenin is on special at Checkers at R22.

"We really must list it as our house white," said Jones, "there's nothing else around to touch it."