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-06.23.25

Airborne-NextGen-06.24.25

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

TikToker Arrested After Landing His C182 in Antarctica

19-Year-Old Pilot Was Attempting to Fly Solo to All Seven Continents On his journey to become the first pilot to land solo on all seven continents, 19-year-old Ethan Guo has hit a >[...]

Classic Aero-TV: Versatile AND Practical - The All-Seeing Aeroprakt A-22 LSA

From 2017 (YouTube Edition): A Quality LSA For Well Under $100k… Aeroprakt unveiled its new LSA at the Deland Sport Aviation Showcase in November. Dennis Long, U.S. Importer>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (06.27.25): Hazardous Weather Information

Hazardous Weather Information Summary of significant meteorological information (SIGMET/WS), convective significant meteorological information (convective SIGMET/WST), urgent pilot>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (06.27.25)

Aero Linx: Historic Aircraft Association (HAA) The Historic Aircraft Association (HAA) was founded in 1979 with the aim of furthering the safe flying of historic aircraft in the UK>[...]

Aero-News: Quote of the Day (06.27.25)

"We would like to remember Liam not just for the way he left this world, but for how he lived in it... Liam was fearless, not necessarily because he wasn't afraid but because he re>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

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