Almost 2 months ago, I wrote a review of a wine served on an airplane (see my September 7th posting). I loved that wine- so much so that I wrote the airline (Jet Blue) to tell them how much I appreciated their selection. This past Friday, I had a completely different airline wine experience.
Let me paint the picture for you.
On Thursday morning I, along with my boss, flew to Atlanta for some Friday meetings. Now if you've ever gone from the West to the East, you know that it is an all-day affair. The 5 hour flight alone doesn't kill your day, it's the 3 hour time change that really hits you hard. We went to our meetings on Friday, then went back to the Atlanta airport to catch our flight to the West coast. Due to a serious storm and a late flight crew, our flight was delayed by almost 2 hours. The sheer amount of travel over the two days, a nasty airport meal at Chili's, along with the annoying delay, left me a little on the angry/grouchy side. So, when the flight finally left and the beverage cart came around, my first thoughts were of red wine.
When the flight attendant (I used to call them stewardesses until I got chewed out for that by a Southwest employee) offered me Fish Eye Shiraz, I should have read the warning signs and changed my mind
. Not sure if you've read my review of Fish Eye Shiraz, but I'm not a big fan of that wine. Instead of ordering a beer or a whiskey, I fell victim to my own stubbornness and opted for the other wine option- La Rosa's La Palma Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile. This wine was TERRIBLE. Just AWFUL. I took one sip and almost spit it out. Worried that my anger/grouchiness were influencing my ability to rate this wine, I asked my boss to try it. He had the exact same reaction. I can't even explain what it was about this wine that was so bad. If I tried, I'd be here all day writing. Everything about it was just so damn bad.
I guess my conclusion from this experience is that while Jet Blue seems to have their stuff together when it comes to wine selection, the other airlines are definitely lagging. Don't fall into the trap I fell into. When on a plane, do yourself a favor and order a beer.
Recommendation: Don't buy it
Good to know! I put this one on my red list for banned wines from my table.
Have you ever tried wines from Uruguay? It looks like they are producing some but I never had a chance to try them. Not even sure if they are imported in the US...
Posted by: Pascal | October 31, 2006 at 11:09 AM
Loved the commentary! The worst part is, that several years ago I was trying to sell premium wine to the airline industry, but it's hard to compete with the rock bottom prices of a lot of bad wine being dumped in the market.
Posted by: Lisa Pavageau | November 02, 2006 at 08:58 AM