British Airways launches new champagnes in First Class, ends Grand Siècle

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• Gordon says:

  3 Feb3 February 07:01

  “luckily (for BA) it is not self-pour in the Concorde Room”.

  It’s not self pour in galleries either and that champagne nowhere near the £200 mark!

  • Andrew J says:

    3 Feb3 February 07:32

    It is self-pour in Galleries First.

  • Rob says:

    3 Feb3 February 08:45

    Galleries First is self pour.

    • Gordon says:

      3 Feb3 February 09:00

      I was not referring to Galleries First! “
      Hence the nowhere near the £200 mark comment”

      • Andrew J says:

        3 Feb3 February 09:06

        But you said “Galleries”, suggesting you were referring to both lounges under the Galleries brand. There is Galleries First and Galleries Club. We were highlighting that self-pour is available for Gold/OWE members in Galleries First.

        • Gordon says:

          3 Feb3 February 09:13

          Yes I meant Galleries Club. But I can see how it could be misconstrued!

  • Clayton says:

    3 Feb3 February 09:41

    Gatters Club Lounge has entered the chat:
    Always been, slight pause requiring the words “you’re welcome to just leave the bottle so as to save you and your colleagues time” during and for awhile after coof. Generally learning to just leave the bottles out for self pour as before especially once a bottle has been asked for by 2 people in the morning.

    Self pour bubbles in Club Lounge is just one of the reasons it’s consistently better than any of the Galleries at LHR ( less crowded[ mostly], better furniture and architectural pieces, views, to name a few of the others )

  • dougzz99 says:

    3 Feb3 February 12:14

    Why can’t I order food and have it brought to the table, bitch bitch bitch. Why do I have to order Champagne, why can’t I just get it myself, moan moan moan.

• Mike says:

  3 Feb3 February 07:08

  Feels like a column-filler this….however I may as well indulge….. a shout-out for the white Rioja that has just rotated through on the 3-monthly cycle on board.

• The Savage Squirrel says:

  3 Feb3 February 07:25

  Champagne. Right at the top of my list of things people eat/drink because they’re viewed as posh, but are in fact not very nice. See also: lobster (fun fact: lobster used to be given to prisoners or disposed of as fertilizer because most people viewed them as inedible waste).

  • James says:

    3 Feb3 February 07:59

    Fact- squirrel is reasonably tasty

    • The Savage Squirrel says:

      3 Feb3 February 08:59

      Yikes!

      • AJA says:

        3 Feb3 February 09:11

        Is that why you’re Savage? 😀

  • Alex Sm says:

    3 Feb3 February 08:09

    Oysters used to be food for poor English workers… and so what? We live in present times with their own values and preferences 🦞

  • Ken says:

    3 Feb3 February 08:27

    One of my favourites was Heston Blumenthal running Blue Nun through a Soda Stream, and 50% of people thought it was a fine champagne in a blind test.

    • ianM says:

      3 Feb3 February 08:53

      And I suspect half the people on here couldn’t tell the difference….and the other half couldn’t care less!

    • The Savage Squirrel says:

      3 Feb3 February 08:58

      There’s some quite good academic evidence that wine awards and recommendations, even when done by noted wine experts, when they are run as true blind tests, are effectively random.

      • RussellH says:

        3 Feb3 February 10:37

        I recently re-watched one of Rick Stein’s travelogues in Bordeaux, where he was invited to a massive wine tasting – all blind, of course.
        IIRC there were some 150 wines being tasted; Rick commented negatively on the number. Along the lines of “how does anyone’s palate tell the difference after the first dozen or so tastes?”
        If they had had the time to spend 5-7 minutes between tasting each wine, perhaps take a drink of water and a nibble of bread, possible. But if you did that you would spend an hour over just six or so wines….

        • Rob says:

          3 Feb3 February 11:22

          I went to an amazing tasting where the SAME wine was served in different shaped and different coloured glasses. Genuinely stunning evening.

        • lumma says:

          3 Feb3 February 13:08

          In my former career, one of our wine suppliers used to host it’s annual tasting in the hospitality area of the Oval cricket ground. The entire hospitality area over two floors. It was only really the “weird” wines that tested markedly different that your end up remembering

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    3 Feb3 February 12:53

    And oysters used to be food for common people and chicken was a luxury product.

  • Bagoly says:

    3 Feb3 February 19:15

    I do love the taste of champagne.
    Re lobster – I find it quite nice, but I’d say I get more pleasure from nearly any type of prawn, even before the premium pricing now applied to lobster.

• Kowalski says:

  3 Feb3 February 07:29

  Seeing as BA have decided to select champagnes from around the globe, I’m surprised they haven’t decided to serve Сове́тское Шампа́нское (Soviet Champagne). The ‘Champagne’ from Belarus’s finest wine producer retails at £2.10 a bottle. Just think of the savings BA could make in a year! I suppose the only thing holding them back from loading it are the sanctions.

  • James says:

    3 Feb3 February 08:02

    Hilarious comment! But I do like BA’s decision of “quality over name”.

  • Alex Sm says:

    3 Feb3 February 08:12

    lol, that’s the best comment 🇧🇾 Also – a fun fact: Krug might be Russian as well after all as this word means “Circle” in Russian, a perfect name for champagne

  • His Holyness says:

    3 Feb3 February 12:50

    Mmm leckerschmecker, I can taste the aspartame.

• Bernard says:

  3 Feb3 February 07:32

  Curious to judge a champagne quality purely by its price alone.
  But there are so many who judge quality by price on so much. Hence the mugs who buy lvmh bags.
  Almost a pity BA hasn’t really cut the offer to some big name plonk like Veuve and invested in the burgundies instead for the wine connoisseurs.

  • JDB says:

    3 Feb3 February 07:43

    Yes, the price is completely irrelevant – Veuve Clicquot and its La Grande Dame are some of the most grotesquely overpriced champagnes on the market and of course brought to you by the producers of Whispering Angel, another great marketing con.

    The positive is that BA is going to be offering some variety.

    • Gordon says:

      3 Feb3 February 08:06

      Are not all products that wealthy people can afford grotesquely overpriced! Just one example amongst the many places in London, Sloane street retailers do well, selling designer goods at grossly exaggerated prices, if people are prepared to pay the price, they will sell it, and indeed make a tidy profit.

      • Rob says:

        3 Feb3 February 08:42

        Most Bond St / Sloane St shops lose money and are there for image purposes.

        • Gordon says:

          3 Feb3 February 08:56

          I presume that is down to their property rental costs from Cadogan Estates as oppose to actual sales of their products!

      • Cicero says:

        3 Feb3 February 10:21

        The goods are grossly underpriced. If you can get your hands on a Chanel or Hermes handbag you can flip it immediately for a big profit.

    • David S says:

      3 Feb3 February 08:16

      Totally agree on Whispering Angel. Nice at an exact temperature otherwise pretty yuk

    • meta says:

      3 Feb3 February 10:30

      But Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame is coming to New York route by December. I bet that this will get rolled out as the only champagne on all routes. in 2025

  • RussellH says:

    3 Feb3 February 10:44

    Apropos LVMH bags, I once watched a consumer test of three similar sized small (but over cabin-sized) suitcases.
    One from Matalan, one from Samsonite and one from LVMH. At the time, roughly £30, £120 and £450.
    They packed all three cases identically – same weight. Drove a crane out next to a parked shorthaul plane, lifted each case in turn up to the height of the top of the fuselage, and dropped them on the tarmac.
    The Matalan case shattered into bits; the Samsonite + LVMH cases were in pretty much identical states, badly damaged, but just about in one piece.

    • Gordon says:

      3 Feb3 February 11:17

      Tbh I only purchase Samsonite products, even if they are out of warranty they will repair a manufacturing fault or replace it!

  • Paul says:

    3 Feb3 February 12:46

    Yes , a lot do this simply by choosing BA. Quality v Price simply does not apply to BA

• Doc says:

  3 Feb3 February 07:56

  Shame, since I do like the LPGS. Not for the price but more because of the taste. Everyone’s palate is different and so agree that price can be a con.

• David says:

  3 Feb3 February 08:09

  DL FdC is a good addition
  I had a case of the 96 years ago and it was magic.
  I hope they improve the red menu, any news on that?

• Greenpen says:

  3 Feb3 February 08:13

  IAG have missed a golden opportunity to promote the company by not offering a cava. The expensive ones are difficult to find which would please the customer base.

  Oh, and plenty of champagnes come from the USA so they are not exclusively French.

  • No longer Entitled says:

    3 Feb3 February 08:40

    No. Champagne only comes from France. Indeed, only a small part of France. The clue is in the name.

    • Stu_N says:

      3 Feb3 February 08:49

      You can buy sparking wine in the USA labelled as champagne but only because DOC rules can’t be fully enforced there. See also Californian “hermitage” which bears zero resemblance to the fine Rhone wine it is named after.

      In Europe using Champagne is essentially banned for anything other than sparkling wine made in particular parts of NE France. The method of making it used to be known and “methode champagnois” but is now “methode traditionalle” and manufactures have had run-ins over colours called “champagne gold” and similar.

      • RussellH says:

        3 Feb3 February 10:51

        Ironically perhaps, the geology and climate do not quite follow the political boundaries.
        Go to the far south of Champagne and you will find producers of Champagne. Not the top names or quality perhaps, but still interesting.
        Drive a few miles south and the colour of the tarmac on the road changes, indicating that you are now in northern Burgundy. No change to the scenery, terroir is identical, but the wine has to be called Crémant de Bourgogne, not Champagne, even though it tastes the same.

    • NorthernLass says:

      3 Feb3 February 08:52

      Indeed, this is why Americans call it “French Champagne” and we respond “What other kind is there?” 🤷‍♀️🍾

      As someone else has pointed out, there’s a US producer who somehow managed to get away with selling “Californian Champagne” or something like that (we had it last year at New Year in Florida!) but I doubt it sees the light of day in Europe!

  • Clayton says:

    3 Feb3 February 08:48

    It is literally impossible for champagne to not come from not only France but from the champagne region of said country. It’s a globally, geographically protected product.

    Anything made in different regions of France, let alone anywhere else, has no right and is acting illegally by calling itself champagne.

    That’s why we have Prosecco, Cava and sparkling wines – because they can’t call their products champagne.

    Not my opinion. Legally established standard of some decades at this point

    • aseftel says:

      3 Feb3 February 09:39

      It’s not globally protected. For example, in the US, existing American Champagne producers were grandfathered in to the 2006 treaty https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2016/07/the-protection-of-champagne-wine/ (and the US never ratified the Treaty of Versailles before that).

      • Alex Sm says:

        3 Feb3 February 11:47

        And Russians resumed manufacturing Soviet Champagne which is now geographically protected in Russia vs French Champagne – this is exactly what is called “the name of the game” (or “the game of the name”). I’m pretty sure Aeroflot serves it 🍾

    • Cicero says:

      3 Feb3 February 10:24

      Prosecco is called Prosecco because it comes from, err, Prosecco

      • RussellH says:

        3 Feb3 February 10:55

        And you can get some very good Prosecco from some of the smaller producers there. The top of the range ones can be quite expensive – I have seen them in the vineyard at around twice the price of cheap Champagne in the Lidl in the next town.
        No idea if they are actually worth that much.

      • Alex Sm says:

        3 Feb3 February 11:51

        Ha, they are now also fighting for protection and exclusivity these days – I saw a poster on the Tube the other week 🥂
        https://x.com/win_and_fly/status/1753747691564146804?s=46

  • Bagoly says:

    3 Feb3 February 18:56

    No, no, one of the reasons I am reluctant to use Avios on Iberia is the fact that they serve Cava, which tastes very different from Champagne due to use of different grape varieties.
    The rules allow Cava to be produced with many grape varieties, including Chardonnay and Pinot Noir (although not the Pinot Menuier which is 30% of Krug) but generally it’s Parellada, Macabeo, and Xarello – not my taste.
    I have found some Cremants from other parts of France tasting more like champagne recently, and at New Year we had a bottle from the dominant (65%) cooperative in Luxembourg which was perfectly drinkable, and costs EUR7.50 in German supermarkets.

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