Imagine taking a flight on Air France and asking the flight attendant for white wine. The Attendant informs you that they have Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand and Chardonnay from California… but nothing from France. If word got out in France that the national carrier didn’t stock French wines there would be riots (or at the very least a strike!). Now imagine you’re in Canada flying the national carrier (Air Canada) and ask for Canadian wine and flight attendant tells you that it’s not an option. You would think people would be up in arms about this! But this is not the case. Unless you’re willing to shell out the cash for a business class seat you will not have access to Canadian wines on your flight and if you have bought your seat in business class VQA wines are not available on every flight. I am certainly not advocating that flight carry only Canadian wine, but you would think that as our wine industry reached maturity we would have the option of at least one Canadian wine on every flight from a Canadian airline. I recently reached out to Air Canada, WestJet and Porter Airlines to see whether any of the airlines that use Toronto as a hub are carrying Canadian wines on their flights.
Air Canada carries Canadian wines in their Maple Leaf lounges and as part of their Bar Service in Business Class. In a statement they told me that Canadian wines make up 35% of their total wine purchases. In the Maple Leaf Lounge they aim to have at least 1 Canadian wine available. When I asked about economy customers (because let’s face it … on a radio salary business class is not in the cards) they informed me that factors such as availability, cost, quality and wine industry trends affect their ability to provide wine on Canadian flights. In spite of the commitment Air Canada claims to have to Canadian wine speaking to a few people who travel regularly in business class and utilize the lounges often they do not have Canadian wine available.
Westjet currently doesn’t offer any Canadian wine on their flights but they did tell me that they have had many discussions with Canadian producers over the years and but the cost associated with producing “airplane” bottles appears to be the roadblock with putting wines on their flights. They did however, pour Okanagan wines on flights last year as part of a promotion and it was well received by passengers but there were still challenges with pouring from full sized bottles associated with size, weight, space and waste.
I also reached out to Porter Airlines who fly out of the island airport. Based in Toronto, Porter offers complimentary beverages on their flights. They have poured Ontario wines on every flight since they started in 2006. They are currently pouring Jackson-Triggs 2011 Black Reserve Niagara Cabernet Franc and Jackson-Triggs 2011 Black Reserve Niagara Chardonnay. I asked how they could be the only airline I approached to carry VQA wines when the answer from both Westjet and Air Canada was that it was cost prohibitive to carry Canadian wines. They told me that they pour from full sized bottles and serve in stemless glassware.
I can appreciate the cost associated with quenching the thirst of some 34 million passengers each year but I have a hard time buying the fact that it is so cost prohibitive that you can’t stock Canadian wine on your domestic flights. Porter has found a solution and they don’t even Charge for their drink service. That being said when I spoke with Brian Schmidt, winemaker at Vineland Estates (twitter: @benchwineguy) he let me know that investing in a new bottling system would be very expensive. Many of the wineries in Niagara don’t even have their own bottling line at their wineries and rely on the services of companies that provide mobile bottling service. That just leads to more questions from me to why we can’t pass the cost onto the bottling service to get set up with the little airplane bottles, or why we can’t have the airlines pouring from big bottles. The bottom line is that regardless of the financial investment it’s up to us as consumers to speak up and let them know that we, in fact want Canadian wines on our flights whether we can afford business class or not!
