brp

Don't scoff at the screw-top wines. Once the bastion of things that could just as well be in a cardboard box, the screw top is making inroads in to higher quality wines. With the realization (wonder why it took them so long) that real cork is not an ideal archival storage mechanism due to the porosity, the rubber cork and, yes, even the screw top are becoming more prevalent on better wines. Australia is pretty big into this.

Now, this isn't to say that all screw-top wines are good...and we are talking about AA here

Cheers.

austin_modern

they will forever be associated with Boones Farm.... reminds me of the argument the other day of someone trying to convince me that box wines were the way to go, since the baggie with its convenient straw was more air-tight than cork.

Right.

Next time I'm in Napa I'll keep a lookout for the nice cracking sound of a screw top cap @ the French Laundry.

Shareholder

Given the quality of most of AA's inflight wines, the small glasses are just fine. I find the whites to be too acidic and acerbic, and the reds too dry and tart. Not to mention both are served too cold. (Must say I seldom find a mellow enough red inflight on any airline in business or first, nor a soft and oaky white.)

hillrider

175ml?? Must be a US thing. I've seen the centuries-old standard of 6 glasses per bottle (which is how you got to 125ml, given that a bottle of wine is 750ml and within 50 ml of that for over 2,000 years) stretched to 5 glasses per bottle (150ml per glass), but it's the first time I heard 4 glasses per bottle (about 175ml) considered a "standard" instead of a "generous pour"!

But, as I presumed, it's a modern-day over-eating/over-indulging thing: I just found this article as a case in point.
You have me 100% in agreement in despising the shape of those glasses, but the tumblers aren't any better (IMHO they're actually worse). The size of air/wine contact surface doesn't make a whole lot of a difference, practically none with the young wines that are being served onboard: it's the empty space ABOVE the fill line that does. In a correctly-shaped glass the volatile compounds are concentrated there, and the olfactory traits of the wine enhanced (smell being a leading way we perceive taste). Indeed one of the most important aspects of a wine glass is its ratio of diameter to opening (source), or how much it narrows at the top.

Since we're on a tangent, overfilling of wine glasses is a HUGE no-no: a correctly-shaped wine glass should NEVER be filled above its maximum diameter, which often is only 30% of the way up (sometimes half way, or, with those incredibly large ones, only 10% of the way up).




The reason? By filling a wine glass above the point where it starts narrowing (the point of maximum circumference) you reduce the size of the empty cavity above that concentrates the wine's volatile compounds. And of course, you also reduce the surface to swirl the wine into, further limiting the release of such compounds.

hillrider

+1.

Actually I would prefer if all those producers who are using artificial "corks" for their young wines followed the lead of others and switched to screw-tops. They're far easier to open and it's the same material that closes the bottle anyway.

brp

Don't confuse snobbery with quality

Cheers.

dayone

"wallet breaking."

Pucnit

I wonder if I am the only person that brings their own aerator on international flights. Every little bit helps on AA flights. (yes I do ask the FA for the whole bottle once everyone has been served once )

svenskaflicka

All this time I have been semi hiding my own little salt packets that I bring with me because I am a salt-aholic. Now I feel perfectly normal compared to these people. Maybe, I should be the first to invest in a proper sundae dish.

janetdoe

I actually like the small glasses on AA because I like to taste all of the wines before I settle on one. If I find one I like, I will ask for a larger glass; I agree that the worst feature of the 'stemware' is not volume, it's the ability to put your nose into the glass while drinking.6 oz is a very generous pour unless you are in Germany. Their wineglasses there tend to have a 200 mL mark, which resulted in me being tipsy after a few glasses.

Everything I have heard indicates that 4-5 ounces is a standard 'drink' of wine.
It's been several years since we went wine tasting in Sonoma, but I remember than we visited a winery (perhaps Larson?) that bottled everything with screwtops, and they mentioned that some of their wines were served at the French Laundry. <shrug>

Also, we didn't tour any super-premium wineries, but we visited several good wineries in Australia, and everyone bottled with screwtops. I really think the cork-versus-screwtop argument is snobbery, unless you are really planning on aging your wine for decades. Even then, screwtop may prove to be superior to cork, it's just that there is no data/history on the practice yet.

aamilesslave

I agree if you're buying a bottle. But by the glass...it could be a great deal!

nddomer04

Sorry, I know this used to be true, but it just isn't true anymore. If you've paid any attention at all to wine publications recently, you'll realize that more and more good wineries are switching to screw tops. The comparison to box wine is incorrect. Pick up a bottle of Belle Glos's Meiomi Pinot Noir and tell me that it tastes like a boxed wine. It's consistently rated 90+, as are many other screw top wines. How about the Mollydooker line of wines from Australia? As was previously mentioned, numerous Australian wineries have moved 100% to screw tops. Saying a wine with a screw top is inferior to a corked wine is just as crazy as saying the more expensive a wine is the better it is. About 50% of Wine Spectator's Top 100 wines of 2011 were less than $30. And numerous wines with screw tops were part of that list (Morgan Chardonnay, for example).

Currently, my home cellar has over 200 bottles, and I have fine wines such as Opus, Cakebread, Trefethen and Silver Oak. But I probably have 40 or 50 fantastic bottles that have screw tops. Don't be surprised if some of your favorite high end Napa wineries move in the screw top direction within the next 5-10 years.

Unfortunately, AA carries a lot of what I could consider sub-par screw top wines. But you can get plenty of bad corked wines too (ie, Barefoot)

travelinmanS

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say "yes".

beerup

Not if the glass is AA sized!

beerup

I don't like the coffee on AA, so I bring a small burr grinder (needs an inverter when travelling on flights with a DC port) and a handpresso. I've wondered if I could bring green coffee beans and have the FA roast them when warming the nuts.