We had an excellent response to our online survey about airline wine. Thank you, all 200+ of you who took the trouble to answer our questions. The results are shown below (although even I have to admit that in the light of the current news of British Airways' battle for survival, it does all look a little like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic).
I promised to offer a pair of tickets to the sellout Top 100 Australian Wines tasting at Australia House in London on 30 Jun to two respondents picked at random. The way I ensured fairness was to ask Tuscan-based wine writer, wine producer and tv star Monty Waldin, who just happened to email me first thing Saturday with an idea for a wine-based party game, to pick numbers at random.
I am delighted to announce that our two winners are both from England: Andrew Fisher of Maidenhead and Richard Connell of Devon, who has been a purple pager for more than three years. Andrew reports, 'I've been into wine since an epiphany in Cape Town in the mid '90s. Luckily my parents have a cellar in their house which is now half full with red bordeaux, German Rieslings and some treasures from Australia and New Zealand which I brought back from when I lived down there in 2002-4.' Sounds like an ideal candidate.
These are the results of all the responses up to midnight on Friday, the deadline for eligibility for the two pairs of tickets.
When flying Club (Business) or First Class on British Airways, would you want to be offered a red bordeaux?
Yes 58.6%
No 11.0%
Don't mind 30.4%
When flying Club (Business) or First Class on British Airways, would you want to be offered a white burgundy?
Yes 60.0%
No 6.1%
Don't mind 33.9%
When flying Club (Business) or First Class on British Airways, how important would it be to you to have a wine list that specifies exactly which wines you will be offered?
Very important 70.7%
I would be quite happy to have a longer list of wines from which the bottles available on my flight have been selected (as is the case on many other airlines). 26.5%
Not very important 2.8%
I have of course fed this information back to British Airways and we are all very grateful for your input. I must say I was quite agreeably surprised by the relatively high proportion of people who would not insist on a red bordeaux or white burgundy, while noting of course that this was a minority, albeit a sizeable one.