As Delta Air Lines and other carriers look for ways to boost revenue, catering to the high-paying customers in international business class is becoming an even higher priority.
One way Delta has been doing that is by partnering with a master sommelier to select wines.
Andrea Robinson, one of only 17 women in North America granted the title by The Court of Master Sommeliers, has been the brains behind Delta’s wine selections since 2007.
She notes that serving wine at 30,000 feet presents some particular challenges.
“When you are at altitude, your sense of smell and taste are significantly attenuated,” Robinson said.
Robinson, who is also an author and has hosted television shows on wine, works to find the best wines to pair with the menus planned by Delta’s celebrity chef Michelle Bernstein for passengers in BusinessElite class. Delta rotates BusinessElite wine selections quarterly.
Aside from choosing wines, Robinson also partners with Delta for appearances at events such as May’s inaugural Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, where Delta was a sponsor. She has also hosted wine culture seminars for Delta flight attendants with training on things such as how to recommend wines.
Here, Robinson dishes on what it’s like to choose wines for Delta:
Q: Why is wine selection important for an airline, particularly in international business class?
A: It really connotes and delivers on a quality experience. It connotes [that] we value our customer really highly, such that we want their food and beverage experience to be awesome.
Q: What are the rules that you follow in choosing wines for an airline?
A: I'm looking for wines that have a real defined presence on the palate. For a wine to not lose its profile and its impact at altitude, it has to have a real expressiveness that at the same time isn't over-the-top on terra firma, if the person has it on board and loves it and they go to find it at a restaurant.
Q: What else is different about serving wine in the air?
A: The challenges of opening wine are certainly notable. It's not so much that it's in the air but in a confined space — an aircraft galley. I look really hard for screw top closures where it's appropriate, where the wine is of great quality. I always keep that in mind because I know the flight attendants love that. It is harder to open the wine [in the air]. Compliance requires us to use a corkscrew that has the auger and the two levers with no blade. Then it doesn't have a foil cutter, and that's just one extra step that they have to finesse.
The stemware may be a little bit smaller than it would be on the ground. So we are careful about pouring the right portion so that people can still enjoy the aroma without it being filled to the brim.
Flight attendants have to really make sure that the wines are really served at the proper serving temperature, and we make a point of showing the labels to passengers when we’re serving, instead of just, “Here’s a red wine.”
Q: What is the most popular wine on Delta right now?
A: The Belle Glos Meiomi Pinot Noir.
Q: Do you handle only BusinessElite selections for Delta?
A: I did help them select the wine for the international coach complimentary wine program, because we were really eager to find a wonderful product that was easy to serve well. We found that we could serve wine from a Tetra Pak and it would be easier and also it would be a much greener product.
Q: How important is it for a winery to have its wine served on an airline like Delta?
A: Wineries are very savvy about this. They recognize it's an opportunity to gain trials by a very savvy, food-and-wine-interested, traveling clientele. There are occasions when we had exclusive bottlings of a winery or a vineyard.
Q: What other work do you do?
A: I update a wine buying guide every year. It's called Andrea Robinson's Wine Buying Guide. I actually have a section in there that features all the Delta on-board wines. It puts me in good stead when it comes time to select the wines for Delta, because I've really got a great baseline. I've also just recently converted the buying guide to an app.
