British Airways introduces English sparkling wine in Club World business class cabins

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• Jacqueline says:

  28 Mar28 March 06:26

  Shame they weren’t offering this in the lounge. Prosecco. YUK.

  • NorthernLass says:

    28 Mar28 March 09:24

    Can you not still ask for champagne though? Experiences can vary – I’ve had staff offer it proactively but then also the server pulling a face when it was (very politely!) requested.

    • Bagoly says:

      28 Mar28 March 10:56

      Galleries North still bringing champagne when asked in January.

  • Bagoly says:

    28 Mar28 March 10:56

    Agree with the Yuk for prosecco, cava and sekt.
    There are some cheap sparklers with the champagne grapes which I find more drinkable than anything in the previous line : Lidl had some Italian Pinot-Chardonnay recently: GBP4.79 in UK, in Italy it got reduced to EUR1.69!
    Australian, NZ, and USA have lots.

• G says:

  28 Mar28 March 06:43

  My calls for extra dry to demi sec champagne continue to be ignored!

  Good to see BA supporting English producers!

• Kim says:

  28 Mar28 March 07:01

  Except they very quickly ran out on my flight last night from Delhi!

  • SteveW says:

    28 Mar28 March 11:15

    Glad to know it was popular.

• Paul says:

  28 Mar28 March 07:07

  English wine is like American cheese and long life milk- Best avoided !

  • The real Swiss Tony says:

    28 Mar28 March 07:29

    🙄

  • Mikeact says:

    28 Mar28 March 08:32

    Total rubbish comment…

    • Stu says:

      28 Mar28 March 08:42

      To be fair, we judge as we find – I paid £35 for a sparkling Kent produced wine and it was gash, half of it went down the pan. Once bitten, twice shy and all that …

      • flyforfun says:

        28 Mar28 March 09:21

        I worked for a subsidiary owned by one of the Kent winemakers when they were just starting out. We were given a mixed case of wine from the first season when the company was starting out. Out of 12 bottles (11 wine and 1 sparkling) 1 was good, three passable, three ok for cooking with and 5 undrinkable (the sparkling was particularly acidic – notes of vinegar on chips comes to mind). While we thought this was a generous gift at first, we found out he sold it to our company so a great way to get some money back on poor first harvest. I’m pretty sure we got another box the next year, but it hadn’t improved. I was aghast when I read a few years later the sparking was being introduced to First! I assume it must have improved!!!! 😀

  • Nick Burch says:

    28 Mar28 March 10:43

    We had some excellent Iowa cheese on a recent visit to the states! Obviously the standard stuff is utterly terrible, but if you hunt around you can find some very interesting local stuff. Many farmers markets and fancier delis will have interesting local/regional cheeses

  • Bagoly says:

    28 Mar28 March 10:58

    Many (but definitely not all) English sparkling wines are well up there with decent champagne.
    Mass-produced American food is generally awful – particularly the (deliberately soured) chocolate.

    • Alex Sm says:

      28 Mar28 March 17:24

      I’m not sure to be honest what I would prefer – deliberately soured American chocolate or deliberately sweetened English one

• Ironside says:

  28 Mar28 March 07:29

  Two of the three comments above manage both to be opposing yet still wrong.

  Thank goodness an international airline like BA doesn’t go down the jingoistic, whiny-Brexiter, path of banging the drum for a specific country’s produce: we’d end up with limited choice and lower quality at a higher price.

  Yet thank goodness they are putting English sparkling wine in Club: it’s very good and has been for years. Virgin had some (I forget the vineyard) last year, and it was delicious.

  • Kip says:

    28 Mar28 March 08:04

    All airlines ‘bang the drum’ for their specific country’s produce. It’s the norm. I didn’t realise Lufthansa, Qantas, Aegean etc. were ‘whiny Brexiter’ airlines but I guess you learn something every day. Of course, Virgin have been doing this for years.

    • NorthernLass says:

      28 Mar28 March 09:26

      Indeed, can’t bear those whiny “Espexit” types at Iberia forcing their Rioja and Ribero del Duero on us 😂

  • Bagoly says:

    28 Mar28 March 11:55

    I think it makes sense for flag-carriers to emphasise native products, when they are good.
    English sparkling wine has plenty to offer, as do British cheeses.
    I reckon BA should do all-day English/Scottish/Welsh breakfasts, and pork sausages (Observant Muslims and Jews can order special meals or take the alternatives).
    Scottish smoked salmon, Dorset Crab, Fish & Chips, and even Gregg’s sausage rolls!

    But no “British wine” !

    More generally I do wish airlines with a limited budget in Business Class would do simple food well, rather than restaurant-level food badly.

    • Alex Sm says:

      28 Mar28 March 17:26

      Isn’t British wine some sort of diluted port from a big barrel?

• HH says:

  28 Mar28 March 07:31

  Shame that Chapel Down isn’t one of the four. The Balfour should be nice though.

  • GillyDee says:

    28 Mar28 March 09:03

    +1

  • Chris W says:

    28 Mar28 March 09:12

    Agreed. Chapel Down would be great.

  • Bagoly says:

    28 Mar28 March 11:56

    I remember Chapel Down still white wine from the 1970s – that was awful!

    • Alex Sm says:

      28 Mar28 March 17:27

      Remembering something not awful from the 1970s would be an achievement!

  • _aDifferentSimon_ says:

    28 Mar28 March 15:00

    chapel down is in the buy on board in economy for a fiver or so! It’s pretty good for the price.

• Lee says:

  28 Mar28 March 07:42

  I bought a couple of bottles of Digby at Christmas, and it’s excellent. Certainly a lot better than BA’s usual champagne offering in Business.

• VALittleRed says:

  28 Mar28 March 07:52

  My immediate gut reaction was this is BA and therefore a cost cutting measure but maybe it might not be for a change and actually tastes nice. I look forward to trying what they have to offer later this year, is the champagne really that bad or just not as good as what is offered in other business airlines?

  • No longer Entitled says:

    28 Mar28 March 08:50

    It can be both a cost cutting measure and an improvement. It’s great for Digby so I imagine BA are getting it at a steal.

    • Rob says:

      28 Mar28 March 08:59

      BA doesn’t pay duty or VAT for a start, so if they are paying more than £10 per bottle for a £34 RRP I’d be surprised. I’m guessing most of our readers had never heard of Digby before today – this exposure is valuable.

      • No longer Entitled says:

        28 Mar28 March 11:25

        I’ve never heard of Digby and if I was them I would be happy to do this at cost for the exposure as you say.

        • Bagoly says:

          28 Mar28 March 12:04

          Digby forgot to specify that BA should use a right-handed crew-member for the publicity photo!

        • Peter K says:

          28 Mar28 March 16:05

          @Bagoly
          Looks like the image is reversed.

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