Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - CX special featured wine...

A few months ago, CX featured a special red wine from Portugal, both in F an C ( on the LAX HKG vv, and YVR HKG segments, from my personal experience. ) And the insert was printed beautifully...shinny and glossy.
This week, on my HKG LAX flight, they featured a chinese red wine. I don't want to comment about the wine, because I don't like most red wines. What I want to comment on is the insert...it was printed on a dull, almost off focus red.
Geez...when you try to introduce your pax to something unusual and new, can't CX try a little harder, to show case the wine...specially, this is a wine from China, a new world producer.
Anyone gets the same impressions ? Your comments are welcome.

CX is serving Chinese wine in F?

Oh dear.

A few months ago, CX featured a special red wine from Portugal, both in F an C ( on the LAX HKG vv, and YVR HKG segments, from my personal experience. ) And the insert was printed beautifully...shinny and glossy.
This week, on my HKG LAX flight, they featured a chinese red wine. I don't want to comment about the wine, because I don't like most red wines. What I want to comment on is the insert...it was printed on a dull, almost off focus red.
Geez...when you try to introduce your pax to something unusual and new, can't CX try a little harder, to show case the wine...specially, this is a wine from China, a new world producer.
Anyone gets the same impressions ? Your comments are welcome.

Hum, I'll stay away from the marketing side of the insert...but the wine is actually interesting. Did you try it? Grace Vineyards - the Chinese wine you're talking about - has been in both CX J and F inserts for about a month now, and I'm really not opposed to it because it's unique, interesting, and showcases really the best grape wine from China. They seem to now always have Krug, the Lynch Bages is always on the list, they usually have a decent white burgundy, so even though it's cheap I think Grace is an appropriate choice for the "special" wine.

Grace is definitely the first actually drinkable, interesting and relatively complex grape wine from China that I've encountered. They make a cab, a merlot and a chardonnay I think. I've had the (misfortune) of having to drink the mainstream Chinese wine brands like Great Wall, Changyu, etc plenty of times before. Many times have I gasped when Coke or Sprite was mixed. Some of you have probably trolled a Carrefour or Wumart in China...and seen in horror the 10RMB bottles of Chinese "wine" that has random and completely arbitrary vintages and varietals on the labels. China has so much arable land, you have to assume they can get grapes right somewhere but never before had I tasted anything even close to "good", or even tasting like wine for that matter.

Grace is the first I've tried that actually is complex and tastes like the winemakers put some effort into their wine. I first tried Grace about a year ago and saw it as a relatively expensive by-the-glass wine at the Beijing Shangri-La, and since then I've seen it at a number of 5 star hotels in China since then. It's not off-the-charts, but it's a really good start at showing what China can be in wine sometime in the future. I actually was quite excited when I saw them put the Grace Vineyards in there. It's not something you can get everyday.

Anyhow, I haven't paid much attention to what the insert actually looks like, but I don't completely crap on them for the selection

CX is serving Chinese wine in F?

Oh dear.

How about shark fin soup instead? They can call that their signature soup. That resembles their logo - at least that is how CX employees describe the airline.:D

On our recent long-haul F, the Grace was the featured wines. Other wines, aside from the Krug, were:

Cuvaison Estate Selection Chardonnay Napa Valley Carneros 2004
Bouchard Pere & Fils Meursault Les Clous 2005 (outstanding)
Possums Vineyard McLaren Vale Shiraz 2004 (also excellent)
Felipe Rutini Reserve Malbec 2006
Chateau Lynch Bages 2001

The TPE-HGK legs had the Deutz Brut, and different wine selections.

Indeed, the Grace has been featured for quite a while now. I appreciate the very interesting comments by QRC3288 and I agree that CX should make an effort to promote Chinese wines. But frankly, I tried it twice and I found it very poor. I enjoy good wines from all continents but found that one really well below what is served in F by any airline. Again, it is not a bad idea to introduce it as it is in addition to a wide selection of other reds.
The Meursault les Clous is not bad, but it is a marked downgrade from the Meurault 1er Cru that was served by CX. It is a simple Meursault appelation controlé and is produced in huge quantity by a wine merchant at rather low price. I had it on other airlines in C class. My opinion is that CX is spending much less on wines. On my HKG-CDG last week, they had a simple red burgundy 2005 cote-de-nuit premier cru. Actually, I confess that it tasted quite good. But other airlines (OZ, BA, SQ,..) serve higher ranked (and higher priced) burgundies. I do not wish to start a debate as tastes are personal and I understand that we are all different and that most pax do not care as much about wines as I do.

How about shark fin soup instead? They can call that their signature soup. That resembles their logo - at least that is how CX employees describe the airline.:D

No, that would unethical.

At first glance, I thought this was a bad move by CX, but after some research I realized that this is the vineyard i was planning on visiting while on business in Shanxi, of course i was just doing it out of curiosity.
And with a little reading I think i know why CX decided to use this as a featured wine..

excerpt from Grace Vineyards's website.
"Mr. Lau Chi Sun (Hong Kong)--Chief Advisor, Grace Vineyards
Mr. Lau has been devoting to wine-making and blending. Presently, Mr. Lau is the chief consultant of Grace Vineyard, wine advisor of Cathay Pacific Airways in Hong Kong, the editor-in-chief of the British Berry Bros & Rudd Fine Wine Club’s Chinese website.":D

At first glance, I thought this was a bad move by CX, but after some research I realized that this is the vineyard i was planning on visiting while on business in Shanxi, of course i was just doing it out of curiosity.
And with a little reading I think i know why CX decided to use this as a featured wine..

excerpt from Grace Vineyards's website.
"Mr. Lau Chi Sun (Hong Kong)--Chief Advisor, Grace Vineyards
Mr. Lau has been devoting to wine-making and blending. Presently, Mr. Lau is the chief consultant of Grace Vineyard, wine advisor of Cathay Pacific Airways in Hong Kong, the editor-in-chief of the British Berry Bros & Rudd Fine Wine Club’s Chinese website.":D Yes, the world of grape-juice commenting is not only pretentious but also very incestrious!!!