Whence Concorde's Wine Collection? | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-07.07.25

Airborne-NextGen-07.08.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.25.25

Airborne-AffordableFlyers-06.26.25

AirborneUnlimited-06.27.25

Tue, Jun 17, 2003

Whence Concorde's Wine Collection?

'Whining Oenophiles' Heard

One of the best things about the Concorde, we're told, was the service. Really good food, super-attentive crew, and the best wines in the air made the already-short trans-Atlantic crossings seem even shorter.

The wine collection was started in the late 1980s, to provide a suitable complement to the food; British Air research found that passengers wanted a champagne, a claret, and a white burgundy. BA's buyers responded, and bought lovely selections of each, which were guarded in environmentally-controlled vaults at Heathrow, with smaller, similar caches to be found in Barbados, New York, and Toronto.

Galley space constraints limited each in-flight selection to just three possibilities; but the selection was constantly rotated, and the roughly $200/bottle wines and champagnes were adequate, to satify the upscale PAX.

There was art, in addition to science, in the selection of the offerings; some wines have been found to taste really lousy at altitude, especially in an airplane's cabin. The scientific community is still wondering why a particular wine can taste just fine at sea level, or even at 8000 feet in a mountain chateau, yet be unpalatable in an airplane, at that 8000-foot cabin altitude. The dryness of cabin air, contaminants that aren't otherise noticed -- nobody has the answer; the taste, though, is unmistakable.

Anyway, the Concorde's cellars will not be sold at auction, as was the original plan. Patrons have convinced BA to sell the Concorde's wines on regular flights. Whether the cellars will be restocked will depend on passenger acceptance.

FMI: www.britishairways.com

Advertisement

More News

NTSB Prelim: Piper PA-23

Pilot Also Reported That Due To A Fuel Leak, The Auxiliary Fuel Tanks Were Not Used On June 4, 2025, at 13:41 eastern daylight time, a Piper PA-23, N2109P, was substantially damage>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: One Man’s Vietnam

From 2023 (YouTube Edition): Reflections on War’s Collective Lessons and Cyclical Nature The exigencies of war ought be colorblind. Inane social-constructs the likes of racis>[...]

NTSB Final Report: Capella Aircraft Corp FW1C50

Pilot Reported That He Was Unfamiliar With The Single Seat Amateur-Built Airplane And His Intent Was To Perform High-Speed Taxi Testing Analysis: The pilot reported that he was unf>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: Timber Tiger Touts Curtiss Jenny Replicas

From 2023 (YouTube Edition): First Kits to Ship October 2023 Having formerly resurrected the storied shape of the Ryan ST—in effigy, anyway—Montrose, Colorado-based Tim>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (07.04.25): Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) [ICAO]

Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) [ICAO] Area navigation based on performance requirements for aircraft operating along an ATS route, on an instrument approach procedure or in a d>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC