The best wine cellars in the sky.
Posted on Jan 09, 2009 under xn--zqqs84h3is.com | editAccording to Business Traveler magazine's annual wine tasting of 40 international airlines, the following rating was given:
1.Thai Airways 2. Northwest Airlines 3.Air New Zealand. 4 Air Canada. 5 Finnair 6. Emirates
7.Singapore Airlines. 8. Icelandair. 9. Lan Chile. 10. British Airways.
Curiously Air France, Alitalia and Lufthansa did not place in the top ten. Moreover, four belong to the *A .
Just my impression. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif
AC placed 7th in the champagne category with Pommery Brut Royale nv, didn't place in the white wine category, placed 10th in the reds with Kenwood Old Vines Zinfadel 1999.
DL had the top sparkling wine (Henriot Brut millesim 1989), top red wine (Speri Amarone della Valpolicella classico 1995), but didn't place in the overall scale.
Top overall TG placed 5th in the sparkling category and 1st in white (TG reds did not place). 2nd placed NW placed 6th in sparkling and 3rd in reds.
I gather from the results that 1) the scores were so close that they were statistically insignificant, 2) some airlines like DL must either have awful secndary wines to have been dragged down into no overall placement, or 3) the top-rated airlines served a consistant selection.
As for 4 top 10 airline cellars being from *A, *A airlines made up 10 of the 40 entrants (all except UA, Lauda, AN, MX and Tyrolean didn't play) so you'd expect 2.5 in the top 10 (10 x 10/40 = 2.5).
5 OW airlines participated (AY, BA, IB, LA, QF - AA, CX and EI didn't) so you'd expect 1 in the top 10 (5 x 10/40 = 1.25) so OW taking 3 top 10 spots is good for them given that CX was playing.
I've heard that DL has eliminated its Business Elite wine list.
[This message has been edited by terenz (edited 11-25-2001).]
He lives in Virginia, and has over 5000 bottles in his cellar according to The Wall Street Journal.
Yes it is Stephen M. Wolf of US Airways. Who knows maybe that is why they have the award winning Envoy Class. I'm surprised Flyer Al didn't post this.
Yes, Mr. Wolf loves his wine so much that he took great pride in choosing the types of wines served in transatlantic Envoy & First class.
I don't know the exact names of the awards Envoy has won, but I believe it has to do with the inflight cuisine. US Airways actually refers to their business class product as "award winning Envoy Class" in the back of the Attaché inflight magazine.
FWIW, US only placed one wine in the contest: Kendall-Jackson Cabernet Sauvignon 1997 Vintner's Reserve in the red category. I can't say I saw it in 6 flights.
Curiously Air France, Alitalia and Lufthansa did not place in the top ten.
AF didn't play. AZ didn't place wines in the top 10 of any category (top 10 scores - ties counted as one place so the sparkling category had 17 placings). LH placed 4th in the reds with an Australian shiraz (Wolf Blass 1997 - didn't say which colour label which indicates the quality for Wolf Blass).
FWIW, the participants were:
Aeromexico, AC, CA, NZ, AZ, HP, NH, OZ, OS, BA, BD, CI, DL, EK, BR, AY, Hawaiian, IB, Icelandair, JL, KL, KE, LA, LH, MH, Martinair, ME, NW, QF, SN, SK, SQ, ZA (South African), Spanair, SR, TP, TG, US, RG and VS.
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