WRT A relationship between BA and LP, no more than any other trade customer I would imagine. I’m purely guessing but i would imagine BA tries to stipulate in their contract with LP that LPGS can’t be supplied to other carriers, or at least any operating within certain geographies.

I have always thought that arranging the first champagne offering must be a nightmare, as ultimately you want a well known prestige cuvee as a marketing tool but these wines are by their nature made in relatively small amounts and obviously mostly/only during declared vintages, so there are probably only 6 or so different ones to choose from that are in this quality. category and made in volume to supply all BA first flights....and ultimately the other carriers are all after these too!

I would imagine BA has to place relatively large orders each time and keep a larger stock compared to some other wines which it can substitute more freely, but even then I’m sure LP would basically dictate the price....it’s not like LP would struggle to sell it elsewhere, they probably have a handful of other carriers calling them every year.

On the other hand, I’m quite sure Bolney would have dropped their pants on price completely when BA came calling! Why not, it guarantees huge amounts of your wines are not only purchased, but they get tasted and advertised to people on their flights in J, and who might then buy it directly when they land back in Blighty.

With regard to wines that you can find in retailers, it’s an age old problem, because if your providing a cheap wine to a paying customer the last thing you want is them going out and seeing it’s only £6 a bottle! Conversely, this is exactly what you want your customers to do with the champagne, claret and burgundy, you want the to know they can spend their whole F flight drinking £120 a bottle champers.

Equally, stick villa maria in F and there’s outrage! However, I bet if that bottle of VM was decanted into a different bottle no one would have cared/noticed.

I know Majestic has a range of about 100 on-trade exclusive labels which are basically wines from their range between £5-7 retail price which are relabelled as a different brand and sold to pubs/restaurants, precisely so that they can sell these at £15-25 and customers dont know what the margin is.

I would be surprised if we don’t see such tactics at BA with unknown brands appearing that are probably BA owned, except for the claret, burgundy and champers for F/J.

I have, as mentioned, no idea whether the story is real or complete nonsense, but the article makes a clear claim that the person they spoke to explains it’s ‘how they are keeping their hands smooth during flights’, in which case, by definition, they’d have to do it at a time they would not know if someone would like to drink more champagne or not.

To put this in perspective, there was a 2004 Haut-Brion (£250 retail) on my Emirates F last week, with a £790 bottle of cognac (with a cheaper £495 alternative) and a single malt retailing at £175. Dom 2009 was the default champagne.

BA is very much not an exclusive airline buyer of LPGS. For example, LH/F has LPGS as its “basic” Champagne, with nicer stuff on request (eg Taittinger Comtes des Champagne 2006 last month).

note that LPGS is non vintage. It’s fine, but it’s far from impressive for F. Personally, I think it’s a decent lounge Champagne, but it doesn’t show well at altitude. Tastes differ, of course.

NYLON Boy

All very interesting but it wasn't my point.

What I mean here is my suspicion is many people who come on here complaining about wines don't have similar knowledge to you and wouldn't pay at home for the wines they complain about on board. In fact some of the comments strike me more as 'wine snobbery' rather than a meaningful contribution to the debate.