The official results are now in for Business Traveller’s annual airline wine awards. Jenny Southan reports.
The time has come again to raise a glass to the winners of the Business Traveller Cellars in the Sky Awards, which celebrate the best first and business class wine served in-flight. In this competition, 29 airlines entered and blind tastings of more than 200 bottles of white, red, sparkling and fortified wine took place in November at the Park Plaza County Hall hotel in London. There were four judges: Charles Metcalfe, TV wine presenter and wine critic, and co-chairman of the International Wine Challenge; Tim Atkin, Master of Wine, wine columnist for The Observer, co-chairman of the International Wine Challenge and co-founder of The Wine Gang (thewinegang.com); Joanna Simon, author, wine columnist for The Sunday Times and co-founder of The Wine Gang; and Derek Smedley, Master of Wine for more than 40 years, consultant, and co-chairman of the International Wine Challenge. The full results were announced on February 10 at the Business Travel Show at Earls Court in London, with Charles Metcalfe presenting the trophies to the winners. After the ceremony, and throughout the course of the Business Travel Show, we held tastings of the winning vintages at the Business Traveller stand.HOW AIRLINES CHOOSE THE WINES
When it comes to selecting the wines served on board, airlines adopt different approaches. Lufthansa, winner of four Cellars in the Sky awards this year, has a team of internal and external wine experts (headed by Master of Wine and world-champion sommelier Markus Del Monego) who taste and evaluate the wine. Marianne Sammann, Lufthansa’s general manager for UK and Ireland, explains that blind tasting sessions are conducted democratically “to ensure only wines of the finest quality make it into our selection”. The airline estimates that it gets through about 8,000 bottles of wine in first class and 40,000 in business class per month. With this in mind, Lufthansa knows how important the in-flight selection is to its premium passengers. Sammann says: “Many of our customers in first and business class are connoisseurs, but many also like to be advised on wine choices, so we make sure our cabin attendants are knowledgeable and can talk about them.” Ger H Bergkotte is senior project buyer for KLM, another of this year’s winners, and it is his job to source the wines for the airline. Once he has decided on the types of wines he wants, for example, a Chilean cabernet, he requests 20-30 samples from different suppliers. These are then tasted blind by a small team of consultants who decide which ones are best. Bergkotte says: “We serve wines from all over the world. We even serve Dutch wines, which prove very successful.” American Airlines, which achieved both third and fourth spots in the first class white category this year, serves more than 60 different wines in the sky every month and has 20 distinct wine lists. It also likes to ensure there is a destination-specific offering on board every flight. Nicole Kapioltas, manager of food and beverage marketing for the airline, says: “We look to serve wines that are true to type, meaning that if you are flying to Spain you will have a nice albarino, and if you are travelling to Argentina you can have a malbec.” When it comes to selecting the wines themselves, American has a wine consultant who visits specific wineries and conducts tastings, before choosing which ones to bring back for the menu-planning team to evaluate. Kapioltas says: “First and business class flyers are paying more, so when they come on board they want to get to their destination safely but they also want the experience – the entertainment, fully reclinable seats and a variety of wines are all part of that. We are not looking for wines that you can go into a shop and pull right off the shelf necessarily, we are looking for wine that provides something unique to our customers in-flight.”WHICH WINES ARE BEST IN THE AIR?
While airlines work hard to select high-quality wines to serve on board, the risk is that once in the air, it could taste quite different. This could be down to the shape of the glass you are given to drink from, the temperature at which the wine is served, the fact that the wine isn’t decanted and may not have had time to breathe, the altitude, and the pressurised cabin with low-humidity air that dehydrates the body and consequently impairs your sense of taste and smell. This is something the judges gave a lot of consideration to when conducting the tastings. Metcalfe says: “When we taste the wines we are scoring them on what we taste in our glass now, and what you get on board now. You can’t wait for these wines to mature for another two or three years. If there is a wine that really fits the bill and would be pleasurable in the air we give it a slightly higher score than if it was just to be drunk on the ground.” When drinking at 35,000 feet, your palate is more sensitive to the astringency of white wines, so this will be more pronounced. Equally, you become more sensitive to the tannins in red wine, which mean some wines will taste dryer and harder. So which wines are best for drinking in the sky and which should be avoided? Atkin says: “Cabernet-based wines don’t work in the air unless they are very high-end. And as tannin and acid are a no-no in the air, that rules out most Italian wines.” Metcalfe adds: “More traditional people ask for a Bordeaux but you can have much more fun and pleasure with a New Zealand pinot noir. Reds should be smooth and easy, while whites should be refreshing and not too acidic.”HOW WE ORGANISE THE COMPETITION
Preparations began last summer, when invitations, entry forms and rules were sent out to more than 60 airlines. Crate by crate, the wine started to arrive, and each had to be unpacked, labelled, catalogued, separated into type and class, and repackaged ready to go to the Park Plaza County Hall hotel for the judging in November. Before the blind tastings, which took place over two days, the wines were “flighted” (placed in order according to taste), opened, put in opaque plastic bags to hide the labels, and arranged on long tables. The four judges sampled 148 business class wines on day one, followed by 93 first class wines on day two. The competition took about eight months to organise from start to finish, so a big cheers to the judges, the hotel and its staff, and all the airlines that entered.AIRLINES THAT DIDN’T ENTER
Aer Lingus, Aeroflot, Air Berlin, Air Canada, Air China, Air India, Air Mauritius, Air Namibia, Alitalia, China Airlines, China Eastern, Continental Airlines, El Al, Finnair, Gulf Air, Icelandair, Kingfisher, LOT Polish Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Malev, Middle East Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Olympic Airlines, Rossiya Airlines, Royal Jordanian, SAS, South African Airways, SriLankan Airlines, Swiss, TAP Air Portugal, Thai Airways, United Airways and Virgin Atlantic.WHAT THE JUDGES SAID
Compared with the selection of wine entered in last year’s competition, this year saw some positive changes. Tim Atkin said: “The first class whites were much improved and many of the airlines seem to have moved away from the white burgundies. The business class reds were also better than last year.” Charles Metcalfe added: “I thought there were quite a few white burgundies but we enjoyed the fact that the airlines have been making an effort to get the right one – it’s a wonderful wine style.” The judges agreed that the difference in price between first and business class had to show in the wines as well as the seat but, as Metcalfe said: “It is not good enough just to buy expensive labels – some might be delicious, but others may need another five years in the cellar.” During the tastings, there was the odd request to open one of the spare bottles because of corkage problems, but this was minimal. Metcalfe said: “We found more of the wines from first class were corked than in business, perhaps because of the higher percentage of fine-wine producers still using corks.” As for the champagnes, there were some really special entries. Atkin said: “The airlines are trying to impress with their champagne in a way they are not with their red and white wines. All top five champagnes would cost more than £80 per bottle in the UK, with Salon Blanc de Blancs champagne [submitted by JAL] costing well over £150.” For a full list of winning wines and placed airlines in each category, click here. To view images from this year's awards, click here.
