Interesting to see the trend of some much more premium wines on offer, even in trans-Tasman J. Is this a short-term promotion or a more lasting shift, I wonder?
I was on NZ104 SYD-AKL yesterday in BP, and was impressed by the sheer number of wines on offer and, for the most part, the quality:
- Laurent Perrier NV champagne
- Two Rivers Convergence sauvignon blanc
- Astrolabe pinot gris
- Lawson's Dry Hills riesling
- Cloudy Bay chardonnay 2018
- Giesen Organic pinot noir
- Villa Maria Ngakirikiri cabernet sauvignon 2020.
I assume there was also a dessert wine onboard but I didn't see what that was, plus port of course. The Ngakirikiri is a $150 bottle, and I must say it was delicious.
Menu generally was decent, though there was no sign of the amuse bouche (we got a tiny ramekin of nuts instead, which rather oddly were served on their own rather than with a drink as usual). First drinks in the air were served with the appetisers.
I had the Puhoi goat's cheese mousse (which I forgot to take a photo of, but was pretty tasty and a nice lighter option), then the pan-fried snapper, followed by cheese and then the coconut mango mousse. Service was a bit disjointed and FAs seemed a bit more inexperienced than usual for the BP cabin, but they were friendly. We departed well over an hour late due to late inbound from AKL (medical emergency apparently) followed by an annoyingly slow turn in SYD (apparently the scheduled cleaning crew missed their window, so that added to the delay). This brought my international to domestic connection time down to about 48 minutes, but the purser did come by proactively with a list of all the connecting pax, and assured me that there were 10 passengers on board connecting to the same BHE flight (last of the day) and which gave me confidence they wouldn't go without us. As it is, I made it to domestic with enough time for a quick sojourn in the regional lounge.
As a side note, I though the catering in the NZ SYD lounge seemed like it had maybe improved a little - the cook to order dish was 'breakfast tacos' which at least is something a bit different.
