Monday, April 27, 2009

In-flight oenephiles

Cruising altitude is no place for connoisseurs. Even for an, uh, aficionado like myself, the alcohol served on international flights really only has two virtues: it's plentiful, and it's free. But somehow I managed to recently find myself seated--not once, but twice--by people who seemed to have mistaken the economy section of an Airbus for the plush lounge of a wine bar.

En route to Lisbon last Thursday, the man sitting in front of me called the stewardess over and handed the bottle of wine she had previously served him back to her, explaining in stilted English that the wine was French. And he wanted Turkish. (I know what you're thinking, and he was clearly not a Turk.)

Returning on a connecting flight from Geneva this weekend, I heard the stewardess patiently responding to the (alas, unheard) questions of someone sitting behind me that the wine was "from California... it's a blend of grapes... it's dry, but it's very nice."

But, apparently, not too nice to serve with a BBQ chicken hot pocket.

(Photograph by the great William Eggleston. Untitled, from the series Los Alamos, 1965­-1974)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What d'ya want, it's free! (Unless you're flying United). And it's gotta be better than Cruzcampo.

Where are the Lisbon pics, hmmm?

The Turkish Life said...

Sad to say, I rather took a liking to Cruzcampo! Just shows how deprived I've become of decent beer...

Photos, um, yeah, I took 300+ of them, and no one really wants me to bore them with that, so, yavaş yavaş...

(Is United really charging for drinks on international flights now???)