Continental or Provincial

Maybe I am a bit of a wine geek.  I can live with that.

So I am on the airplane to California.  And I’m traveling with the kids.  That means I must be looking at the in-flight magazine seeing what they’ve got to drink.

All of a sudden I see something on the wine list that makes me experience a wave of excitement (I know, nobody is more surprised about this than I), which causes me to form a terrible idea.

The in-flight magazine suggests there are two different sparkling wines available on “most flights.”  Two is fewer than four.  But two is certainly enough for a comparison.  So how could I not attempt an in-flight wine tasting of sparkling wines?  Gary Vaynerchuk did something similar once.  I may not have his enthusiasm, or popularity, but heck if I can’t drink on a plane.

Like a good flier, I had my money all ready.  Exact change.

When the flight attendant came by, I asked for young master Fussy’s skim milk first.  Followed by Mrs. Fussy’s Jack Daniel’s and Coke (her standing airline/girlie drink).  Then I asked for a little verification of my research.

“Do you really have two different sparkling wines on this flight?”
“No, we actually don’t have any.  All we have is a chardonnay and a merlot.”

Well what the hell good is it having an in-flight magazine if it is a work of fiction?  To be fair, I suppose “most flights” don’t come out of Cleveland.  The magazine listed a tempranillo that I was excited about too.  But flying out of Cleveland, you only get the two most popular, overproduced, overvalued, least interesting grapes in the marketplace.  Meh.

For the sake of full disclosure, I almost ordered the chardonnay.  Once you have white wine on the mind, it’s hard to shake.  But I thought better of it and ordered a drink.

To their credit they do have Bombay Sapphire (although I remain a Tanqueray fan) which oddly on an airplane costs as much as a Miller Light.  Those light beer drinkers really get the raw end of the deal.  And the 50ml bottle was actually made of glass.  The gin, some ice, and a wedge of lime is not a bad drink.  For an airplane, that is.

Although now you sadly have to read about this, instead of something a lot more interesting.  Otherwise Continental has been fine.  Even in the age of airlines cutting back on amenities, I am feeling reasonably positive about this one.