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Are the Wines in First Class Truly First-Rate?
Here is a nice reading piece from this weekend's edition of the Wall Street Journal (no subscription needed):
Are the Wines in First Class Truly First-Rate? From Dom Pérignon on Singapore to a $19 Chardonnay on United, a tasting tour of five airlines' top offerings The article talks about Doug Frost and how he and UA select the wines to put onboard the flights. It casts quite a complimentary tone about him, contrary to the opinions of many people on this board. I happen to agree wholeheartedly with the author: in UA C, the wines are meant to be more experimental and "fun"; you shouldn't judge them to be "bad" just because they have an obscure name, or that they cost "cheap" (most of them certainly do, and I've bought a half case of one after coming home :D). In F, however, that is a different story. The concluding point of the article (fair use): "By the end of my tastings, ... I'd also reached a few class-specific conclusions: I'd fly Singapore for first class, United for business and I'd be happy on Air New Zealand drinking in coach...." |
The Gloria Ferrer sparkling of late in int'l C is actually quite good, all things considered. I wouldn't hesitate to buy it on the ground as my "house sparkling" at home for non-special occasions.
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Originally Posted by sinoflyer
(Post 14602905)
"By the end of my tastings, ... I'd also reached a few class-specific conclusions: I'd fly Singapore for first class, United for business and I'd be happy on Air New Zealand drinking in coach...."
Excellent and interesting article. |
Generally, the wine discussions on FT make me think about this:
Roman Weil, co-chairman of the Oenonomy Society of the US and Professor at the University of Chicago, tested the controversial hypothesis that experienced wine drinkers "cannot distinguish in blind tastings the wine of years rated high from those of years rated low, or, if they can, they do not agree with the vintage chart's preferences" (Weil). Dr. Weil used wines ranging from four to 17 years beyond their vintage with 240 wine drinkers and found that the tasters could not distinguish between wines of good and bad vintages, except for Bordeaux wines, and even when they could make a distinction, the match between the tasters' individual assessments and the charts' rankings were little better than tossing a coin. When the tests were replicated with wine experts, including French wine academics, the results were again the same as chance. Rangel and his colleagues had 20 volunteers taste five wine samples which, they were told, were identified by their different retail prices: $5, $10, $35, $45, and $90 per bottle. While the subjects tasted and evaluated the wines, their brains were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. The subjects consistently reported that they liked the taste of the $90 bottle better than the $5 one, and the $45 bottle better than the $35 one. Scans of their brains supported their subjective reports; a region of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex, or mOFC, showed higher activity when the subjects drank the wines they said were more pleasurable. There was a catch to the experiment, however. Although the subjects had been told that they would taste five different, variously priced wines, they actually had sampled only three. Wines 1 and 2 were used twice, but labeled with two different prices. For example, wine 2 was presented as the $90 wine (its actual retail price) and also as the $10 wine. When the subjects were told the wine cost $90 a bottle, they loved it; at $10 a bottle, not so much. In a follow-up experiment, the subjects again tasted all five wine samples, but without any price information; this time, they rated the cheapest wine as their most preferred. |
Originally Posted by eponymous_coward
(Post 14603016)
When the subjects were told the wine cost $90 a bottle, they loved it; at $10 a bottle, not so much.
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I always wondered if I was the only one out there that didn't find the taste of $100 wines to be better than $10 wines. Glad to see that I am not actually missing much buying $10 wines! |
Fundamentally flawed study
The problem with this study is that he tasted these wines on the ground based upon the wine list. Many times, as we all know, the wines on the wine list are NOT the wines being poured. Usually, the "good stuff" is out of stock, only listed on the menu, but never actually poured. I'd say that the times that I have flown on UA C, 75% of the time, the wine being poured is not actually on the list. :td:
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Good article
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Originally Posted by eponymous_coward
(Post 14603016)
There was a catch to the experiment, however. Although the subjects had been told that they would taste five different, variously priced wines, they actually had sampled only three. Wines 1 and 2 were used twice, but labeled with two different prices. For example, wine 2 was presented as the $90 wine (its actual retail price) and also as the $10 wine. When the subjects were told the wine cost $90 a bottle, they loved it; at $10 a bottle, not so much. In a follow-up experiment, the subjects again tasted all five wine samples, but without any price information; this time, they rated the cheapest wine as their most preferred. (All the beers we tasted were, in this test, from the same category: U.S. lagers with no special characteristics. I think most of us could told one of those from Irish stout 100 percent of the time, at least until we had gone through a good deal of either.) |
SQ is NOT the only airline that serves dom in F (as article states). I believe LH does, I know TG does on EU/Asia flights and iirc there are 1 or 2 others.
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Originally Posted by joesmoe
(Post 14604840)
SQ is NOT the only airline that serves dom in F (as article states). I believe LH does, I know TG does on EU/Asia flights and iirc there are 1 or 2 others.
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Dom comes and goes from many F services. SQ has consistently served both Dom and Krug for decades; CX used to but now varies by route. LH has served vintage Dom in the past (and a better year when they matched SQ) but no longer does; however, there are many champagnes that are as good or better than Dom :) QF used to serve Dom (still does on a few flights) but has switched to something better (albeit less expensive), for example.
The finest airline wines were in the BA Concorde cellar (about 100 different wines, rotated 4 at a time onto Concorde flights by BA), including wines now costing $1000 per bottle (at the time they were about $300/bottle but average was maybe $100 per). 2nd best were AF Concorde. And the 3rd best was quite surprisingly the DL F wines served in the 80s (when DL had an international F and tried to make it special). Some superb Barolos were served on DL (how strange for an ATL based airline, the home of Coca Cola). |
Originally Posted by SFflyer123
(Post 14603154)
The problem with this study is that he tasted these wines on the ground
A friend of mine was the wine consultant for AA and left after several years because all of the tastings required getting on a plane. |
Originally Posted by jspira
(Post 14605011)
...A friend of mine was the wine consultant for AA and left after several years because all of the tastings required getting on a plane.
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I've always liked the wine they serve in UA C a lot, particularly when combined with their particularly tasty filet mignon.
Maybe I'm an oddball but I absolutely detest the trend to serve nouvelle cuisine food in premium classes. It usually tastes horrible and not even the good wine will make it right. |
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