Category — Wine

If you want to hurt a wine lover, interrupt a discussion about wine, and remind them that “it’s only a drink.” This will offend a wine lover very deeply; you will never be forgiven; and it will be decided there and then that you are a complete idiot.

At a certain moment in their lives, wine lovers have had a mind altering experience, and they make a vow to revere and honor this wonderful liquid for ever. (I almost wrote drink.) Imagine a friend that you have not seen for a long time, and when you meet you find (s)he has fallen in love. One of your first questions is how they met. So it is with wine. The Wine Spectator regularly publishes a column where they interview a celebrity who loves wine. The response is almost predictable, and it almost always goes something like this:

Well, I was a beer drinker, and then I was at this dinner given by Even More Famous Person. They were pouring Château Mouton Rothschild, 1959. [Robert Parker rates this with 100 points!] And that was a turning moment for me. And since then I have built a cellar with probably more wine than I can drink in my lifetime.

People sometimes ask me why I am so fond of Bordeaux in general, and of the wines of Pauillac in particular, and it all goes back to my own turning moment in about 1972. I had received one of my first pay checks, and decided to celebrate with a nice bottle of wine. So I went to Berry Brothers & Rudd in St. James’s Street in London. A very helpful assistant talked to me about wine for about half an hour, and he finally sold me a bottle of Château Batailley, 1966.

And when I shared the bottle with some friends, I almost went into a swoon. I marveled at how fruit could be turned into such magical liquid. Like a drug addict looking to recreate that first “high”, I live for the moments that approximate the taste of that Batailley.

Although this was certainly a good wine, it certainly was not a great wine. Batailley was classified as a fifth growth in the classification of Bordeaux in 1855, and it is generally agreed that it is consistent and reliable, bur not a wine that bowls you over. Like most wines in the Medoc, the vineyards are dominantly Cabernet Sauvignon (70%). The balance is Merlot (25%), Cabernet Franc (3%), and Petit Verdot (2%). But this was my first experience with serious wine on which I really focused my attention.

I was reminded again of the Château Batailley because I decided to spend an hour this morning browsing around that excellent bookshop in Columbia, Daedalus Books. I came across a really interesting book by Michael Broadbent, a Master of Wine, and for years the head of the wine department at Christies. The book is called, Vintage Wine, and it intrigued me because it collects notes accumulated through “fifty years of tasting three centuries of wines,” and I wondered what he wrote about the 1966 vintage of Batailley.

Always dependable, certainly very good, possibly at its best in 1966 beause its comfortably fruity style enriches the leanness of the vintage. Still fairly deep; a leafy arboreal nose — or perhaps it was the influence of Hugh Johnson’s arboretum — which opened up deliciously. Rich and moderately mouthfilling, with attractive Cabernet Sauvignon to the end taste.

Certainly it was not the 1959 Mouton, which he describes as “magnificence piled upon magnificence,” but Château Batailley was the wine that changed my life, and I have been a devoted follower of the grape ever since.

Incidentally, in 1972, I paid 1.95 UK pounds for the Batailley, which seemed like an enormous amount then particularly if you consider that a pint of bitter at the time cost around 12p. So I was paying about the equivalent of 16 pints for my bottle of Batailley. Today a pint of beer goes for around 2.50 UK pounds, and Berry’s sells half bottles of the 2000 vintage at 12.77 UK pounds, the equivalent of 25.33 pounds a bottle. So, even though we all complain about the price of wine today, it costs only the same price as 10 pints of beer, a bargain compared to the 1972 price! Interesting!

I would love to hear about readers’ magical moments. What was the wine that turned you from being a wine drinker to a wine lover determined to spend the rest of your life in pursuit of that perfect glass? Or is wine, for you, just another drink?

It was the last day of a wonderful vacation. We had flown from the United States to Nice, where we rented a car. Then we went to Cinqueterre in Italy, where we met our dear friend, Mr. W. After about a week of wandering around Cinqueterre, we spent a few days touring Tuscany. We spent a couple of days in Florence, and then headed back to Nice.

I spent the last day of the vacation with my younger daughter, H, who was about 14 wandering around Nice. We spent the last night at the wonderful Hotel Atlantic. In Nice, we discovered a great wine shop, where I explained to the owner the wine I wanted to take back home to America. The wine should not be too expensive; it had to be interesting; and it had to be something that was not easy to find in the United States. At the time, I was interested in discovering sweet wines, but I was not especially interested in Sauternes because that is easily found at my local liquor store in Maryland.

The owner of the shop was a wonderful man and obviously passionate about wine. He seemed impressed that I liked some of the less famous but wonderful wines from France like Bonnezeaux. But his main concern seemed to surround H’s eating habits.

I know you live in America, he said, but I hope you do not feed this child at McDonald’s. I assured him that I did not, and he asked H what kind of food she liked, and when she admitted that she was partial to seared foie gras, he roared in approval.

I will never forget this man because he really educated me by selling me a bottle of the Mas Amiel Maury Cuvée Speciale 10 ans d’âge, which I kept carefully stashed away until last Saturday.

Eat this with a very good chocolate cake, my new friend instructed. It is not often that there is a good chocolate cake on the table, a group of people interested in trying something completely different, and enough people to consume a full bottle of a fairly strong dessert wine. (Mas Amiel is 16.5% alcohol.) But all those stars were in alignment of Saturday, and we opened the bottle.

This wine is very different from almost anything I have ever had although if I were forced to compare it with anything, it would be Port. The wine comes from Maury, which is not far from Perpignan. Fermentation is arrested through the addition of grape spirit, which accounts for the high alcohol content. The grapes used are about 80% Grenache, and the balance is Mourvedre and Syrah. It starts life with a year in large glass demijohns, called bonbonnes, and then it goes into barrels for nine years. There is no vintage date on the bottle.

It had a mahogany color, a thick texture, and very luscious cherry flavors. There were also subtle cocoa, coffee, caramel, spice, and wood flavors, and you could still taste the tannins in this wine. It had a good long finish and the tast lingered on.

I have not seen this wine in America, but I believe that it can be found, and it costs around $22.00, which is a bargain for such a good and interesting wine. If you see it, buy it and then go and find the chocolate cake!

This report uses the approach to scoring airline wine service described here.
Dashboard
A more complete description of this flight can be found by clicking here.

These were the leading wines served on Flight UA925 from London (LHR) to Washington (IAD) on February 12, 2006.

• Champagne: Duval Leroy NV $30
• White wine: Laboure Roi, Chablis (Vintage not written on menu) $15
• Red Wine: Chateau Lalande, 2002 $23
• Dessert wine: Sandemans Founder’s Reserve $17
• Total Score: 85

This is in line with the score given to Virgin Atlantic, which got 82 for its Upper Class product. I had some difficulty figuring out the price on the Lalande, which I disliked. Also, the Chablis (delicious) was hard to price.

On this flight, I really did not like the Lalande very much, and find its description very strange:

“Bordeaux remains the emblem for elegant red wine and finesse is its hallmark. The 2002 vintage is a far better example of that ability than the more famous 2000 and 2003 vintages, and Chateau Lalande has crafted a powerful but stylish wine.”

Despite the higher score, I think the wine experience on Virgin would have been a better one because I think the wines seemed more cleverly and imaginatively chosen. It just shows the limitation of numerical scores!

Also, compare the scores with Singapore Airlines, which got 121 for its Business Class product.

This summarizes the wine served aboard a flight from the United States to Singapore (stopping in Frankfurt) in December, 2005. The class of service was Raffles, Singapore Airlines’ brand name for its Business Class.

The score is based on the criteria described in this post. Over the next few months, I hope to collect data on more of the major airlines.

• Champagne: Charles Heidsieck, 1995 $50
• White Wine: Laboure Roi, Montagny, 2002 $26
• Red Wine: Chateau Cissac, 1998 $28
• Dessert wine: Taylor’s Late Bottled Vintage, 2000 $17

• TOTAL SCORE: 121

I found it a bit difficult to price the Montagny and the Cissac in the United States so I used figures from wine merchants in the United Kingdom. (This is not an exact science!)

I have often heard it said that the quality of Singapore Airlines in Business Class exceeds that of United Airlines in First. This score seems to support that position. United scored 116 in First Class while Singapore gets 121 for its Business Class. Singapore’s First Class got 250.

I originally posted this with a silly mistake in the total. A kind reader corrected me. The revised score of 280 positions Singapore Airlines equal in first place to Cathay Pacific.

The following report is based on a flight SQ25 from New York (JFK) to Frankfurt (FRA) which I took on December 7, 2005. Comments on this flight can be found by clicking here.

Again, I am applying the same approach that I described in my earlier post. (Click here to see the approach.)

Champagne: Krug Grande Cuvee $140
White Wine: Joseph Drouhin, Meursault, 2000 $30
Red Wine: Cos d’Estournel, 1998 $60
Dessert wine: Warre’s Twenty Year Old Tawny. $50

TOTAL SCORE: 280

Singapore Airlines, which is often regarded as the “gold standard” for a First Class airline product scores a very good 280 This is oustanding, and it places SQ in first place equaling Cathay Pacific’s score.

I really appreciated being offered Dom Perignon and Krug on this flight and enjoyed tasting them side by side. I concluded that I much prefer the Krug.

Some readers may remember that I put a bet on Chateau Leoville Barton (2003) becoming the wine of the year in 2006.

The Leoville Barton was released at about $75 a bottle, and, predictably, prices have doubled. But the Iron Bridge wine company had a case this morning.

Eight bottles have gone (I wonder where!), but if you jump on it you could get the remaining four bottles of what promises to be a wonderful wine.

For my previous comments on this wine, click here.

And if you get to taste this wine, please leave a comment. I would love to hear what you think of it.

The top wines served on a flight UA925 from London (LHR) to Washington (IAD) in February 2006 in United’s First Class cabin included:

• Champagne Deutz Brut, 1998 $49
• White Wine Chateau de Davenay, Montagny, 2003 $25
• Red Wine Bouchard Pere & Fils, Monthelie, 2002 $25
• Dessert Wine Sandema’s Founders Reserve Port $17

TOTAL SCORE: 116

Note that the prices are my best guess as to their U.S. retail value. (Corrections are welcome. They are used to derive a score to help travelers figure out how seriously airlines are taking wine in the premium cabins.

Interestingly, United had almost a tradition of serving Dom Perignon in First Class back in the “good old days.” Also, it was interesting to see that there was no red Bordeaux on this wine list. Almost evert First Class product offers a red Bordeaux as one of the options.

Using the same analysis Cathay Pacific, scored 280, and Virgin Atlantic Upper Class scored 82.

My method is provided on the link below:

Moyey’s Wine and Travel Blog: Scoring Airlines for their wines in First and Business Class

And my report on Virgin is here.

Using the analysis I applied to Cathay Pacific First Class, I scored the wine list from Virgin’s Upper Class 021 in February 2006. (This is the London to Washington flight.) I gave the wine list a score of 82.

As I said in my earlier post, this is really not an exact science, but it is pretty clear that Virgin spends much much less on its wine than Cathay Pacific, which score 280.

Click here to go the article that describes my criteria for scoring wines on airlines.

Of course, this does compare a Business Class product to a First Class one.

Also, I could not get a US price on Berry’s White Burgundy so I used the price at Berry’s shop in London.

Finally, remember that this scoring scheme is like Oscar Wilde’s auctioneer, who knows “the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Berry’s does an extraordinarily good job of selecting wines, and I am sure that you could have a very enjoyable wine experience on this flight.

Here are the wines, and my best guess at what the retail price would be in the United States.

• Champagne: Laurent Perrier Brut nv $30
• Red Wine: Chateau Lucas, Lussac-St. Emilion, 2002 $19
• White Wine: Berry’s Own Selection White Burgundy, 2003 $13
• Dessert: Graham’s Port $20

• Total Score: 82

This is the first airline that I have tried to analyze based on the criteria described here. And I have a funny feeling that no airline is going to beat this amazing score!

• Krug Grand Cuvee ($140)
• Puligny Montrachet Les Grandes Marches, 2002 ($25)
• Chateau Lynch Bages ($85)
• Ramos Pinto Quinta de Ervamoira 10 Year Old Tawny Port ($30)

(Wouldn’t you have loved to be a passenger on that flight!)

Total Score for Cathay Pacific in First Class would be 280!

Bear in mind that very few airlines, if any, are going to get a score as high as Cathay Pacific, which offers about the best First Class service of any airline in the world. (Also, I took a wild guess at the value of the Puligny Montrachet.)

I have been reading wine and travel magazines for longer than I care to remember, and I have never seen anyone do a thorough job of analyzing the quality of wines that are served by airlines in Business and First Class.

In the next few months, I am going to put up a few airline wine lists and I propose a score that is based solely on price. Generally speaking, an airline will serve four classes of wine: Champagne, white table wine, red table wine, and a dessert wine.

What I propose to do is to take the most expensive wine in each category, get the best estimate of its retail value in the United States, add the four numbers together, and that will be the score. (If an airline does not serve Champagne or a dessert wine, it will receive zero for that category.)

Is this perfect? Not at all. For example, Virgin Atlantic is doing clever stuff these days. They have engaged the services of Berry Brothers and Rudd to select its wines, and many of the wines they serve are interesting wines from southern France. They are often wonderful wines, but the retail price is low so that will be reflected in the score I give.

Another flaw is that the plan is regrettably US-centric, but it is a world that I know. Also, the United States probably still offers a wider selection of wines than anywhere else in the world so it will be relatively easy to find the price although some wines will be hard to find at the retail level. (In Europe, it is hard to find good American wines, and countries that produce good wine tend to dominate their domestic markets.)

But at least it will allow readers to gain a general sense of how much an airline is putting into its wine selections. An airline that spends $250 on its top four wines is likely to be taking wine matters more seriously that an airline spending only $50.

Comments are invited as I would welcome the thoughts of anyone who can think of a better way of doing this.

I would love to hear comments on this approach.

As a matter of interest, when Bordeaux was classified in 1855, the only criterion used to rank the wines was price.