Is the Concorde cellar now empty?
Apr 22, 2019, 6:15 am
#1
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Is the Concorde cellar now empty?
The quality of wines in F has been a recurring theme on FT over multiple threads. Not wishing to judge on price only, but recent posts have mentioned some wines retailing at less than £10 a bottle, although each white and red list seems to be headlined by a wine more in the £25-£40 range (thank you Oaxaca). Anyway, this has reminded me of the Concorde Collection, which according to this article in the Scotsman, had 12000 cases of very fine wines, carefully chosen and laid down, and mostly valued in the £50-£120 per bottle price range. The article goes on to say that it was decided not to sell off the collection when Concorde retired, and instead to use the wines in F class.
Does anyone know whether these wines were actually used in F, and is the Concorde cellar now empty? Maybe the current F wine lists could do with a sprinkling of Concorde's stardust.
Does anyone know whether these wines were actually used in F, and is the Concorde cellar now empty? Maybe the current F wine lists could do with a sprinkling of Concorde's stardust.
Last edited by Flexible preferences; Apr 23, 2019 at 2:29 am Reason: price correction
Apr 22, 2019, 6:36 am
#2
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12000 cases is 144000 bottles assuming 12 per case and the definition of case seems to vary between 6 and12!
British Airways - BRITISH AIRWAYS FACTSHEET
They carry 123,000 passengers per day. Say 1% are first. 1230 people.
Say they drink half half a bottle each. Some 600 bottles a day.
The stash would last 240 day and Concorde retired long long ago. Whatever way you fudge my simple maths if they were using it at all I suspect it is long long gone!
British Airways - BRITISH AIRWAYS FACTSHEET
They carry 123,000 passengers per day. Say 1% are first. 1230 people.
Say they drink half half a bottle each. Some 600 bottles a day.
The stash would last 240 day and Concorde retired long long ago. Whatever way you fudge my simple maths if they were using it at all I suspect it is long long gone!
Apr 22, 2019, 7:08 am
#3
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 1,060
The airline carries up to 145,000 customers every day
That’s a bit of a range in how many people BA thinks it carries daily!
Apr 22, 2019, 7:15 am
#4
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12000 cases is 144000 bottles assuming 12 per case and the definition of case seems to vary between 6 and12!
British Airways - BRITISH AIRWAYS FACTSHEET
They carry 123,000 passengers per day. Say 1% are first. 1230 people.
Say they drink half half a bottle each. Some 600 bottles a day.
The stash would last 240 day and Concorde retired long long ago. Whatever way you fudge my simple maths if they were using it at all I suspect it is long long gone!
British Airways - BRITISH AIRWAYS FACTSHEET
They carry 123,000 passengers per day. Say 1% are first. 1230 people.
Say they drink half half a bottle each. Some 600 bottles a day.
The stash would last 240 day and Concorde retired long long ago. Whatever way you fudge my simple maths if they were using it at all I suspect it is long long gone!
Or have they not used it at all, and BA are still sitting on an amazing cellar, presumably a lot of it aged beautifully and drinking well...
Apr 22, 2019, 8:06 am
#5
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Apr 22, 2019, 8:07 am
#6
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I like the logical breakdown ^. However (I say in forlorn hope), the article only mentioned use on transatlantic services, which narrows it down a little bit. And, I was wondering if they perhaps introduced it bit by bit, maybe just one entry on the F wine list, for instance, or at selected times.
Or have they not used it at all, and BA are still sitting on an amazing cellar, presumably a lot of it aged beautifully and drinking well...
Or have they not used it at all, and BA are still sitting on an amazing cellar, presumably a lot of it aged beautifully and drinking well...
480k movements a year at LHR, 240k for BA roughly. say 1/4 are longhaul and half of those are transatlantic = 30k flights p.a. 1 bottle on each of those flights would last 5 ish years? Probably long gone!
Apr 22, 2019, 11:58 am
#8
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I assume anything of any real quality was either drunk on site after hours or walked out the door loosely concealed under a jacket with the gradual displacement of the executives and senior management responsible for the previous glory days of the airline...
Apr 22, 2019, 12:24 pm
#9
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I remember chatting to Peter Nixson, who was their wine buyer years back before they decided in their wisdom to outsource. I asked him about the Concorde wine cellar, specifically the Winston Churchill bubbles. He said the bubbly didn’t last long after the end of Concorde, I can only imagine the rest of it is long gone.
I believe they used to purchase 10-15 years in advance with the Chateaus in France and got them to cellar it until it was ready. Given that sort of timing if they had any outstanding stock it’s probably well and truly gone......... Some of it did, happily, end up down my throat, but that was back in 2004.......
I believe they used to purchase 10-15 years in advance with the Chateaus in France and got them to cellar it until it was ready. Given that sort of timing if they had any outstanding stock it’s probably well and truly gone......... Some of it did, happily, end up down my throat, but that was back in 2004.......
Apr 22, 2019, 12:41 pm
#10
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There is a part of me that aligns with your way of thinking here, although to be fair the article does say the Concorde Collection was cellared off-site - Barbados, New York and Toronto, so it wasn't like in a room in Waterside where it could so easily go walkies.
Apr 22, 2019, 6:37 pm
#13
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BA did sporadically have some really crap options in F champagne from the time Krug went away in the early 2000s until Grand Siecle became a fixture.