Lufthansa wins more ‘best wine’ awards
2/10/2010 6:47 AM EST
10 February 2010
Another Vintage Performance as Lufthansa wins more ‘best wine’ awards
Lufthansa is celebrating another vintage performance after receiving two top honours for the wines served on-board its aircraft in the Business Traveller 2009 Cellars in the Sky Awards.
The awards for Best First Class Sparkling Wine (Champagne Piper-Heidsieck Cuvée Rare) and Best Business Class Fortified & Sweet Wine (Vinhos Niepoort Late Bottled Vintage 2004) were announced yesterday at the Business Travel Show in London.
Marianne Sammann, Lufthansa’s General Manager UK & Ireland, collected the awards saying: “We at Lufthansa invest a huge amount of time and effort in our onboard service and these awards are an acknowledgment of the standard we continually achieve. The vast majority of our customers remain loyal to Lufthansa because they still want and appreciate the full service that is included within the cost of their ticket.
“Wines selected for the Lufthansa onboard service - whether first, business or economy class - are all chosen in exactly the same way. Our team of internal and external wine experts taste and evaluate the wines during 10 to 12 blind tastings assessing the smell, taste and harmony of them. Each expert then awards points to the wines and the winner is the wine that scores the highest overall score. This means that only the quality of the wines is the final criteria and we are naturally delighted that the award judges agreed with our experts”.
In order to add a wine to its on-board wine list, Lufthansa requires around 8,000 bottles of a variety every two months for serving in First Class. In Business Class it needs some 40,000 bottles and in Economy Class at least 200,000 litres of wine per variety is required every four to six months.
The Cellars in the Sky 2009 wine awards are run by Business Traveller magazine in association with the International Wine Challenge and Wine & Spirit Magazine.
The judges included Charles Metcalfe, TV wine expert and co-chairman of the International Wine Challenge; Joanna Simon, author, wine and food editor for House and Garden magazine and co-founder of the Wine Gang (thewinegang.com); Derek Smedley, Master of Wine for more than 40 years, consultant and co-chairman of the International Wine Challenge; and Tim Atkin, Master of Wine, wine columnist for The Observer, co-chairman of the International Wine Challenge and co-founder of the Wine Gang.
Commenting on this year’s winning wines, Charles Metcalfe said: “An award-winning wine has to obey the general rules of what works in the air, but it has to have elegance and balance as well. Various elements in a wine, such as tannin in reds, and acidity in whites, seem to stick out more in the air. So we look for smooth, not too alcoholic reds, and crisp but gentle whites. We want to find wines that really delight a business traveller, and contribute to the feeling that their ticket money is well-spent.”
For further press information contact:
Aage Duenhaupt / Gudrun Gorner Dave Sanders
Lufthansa German Airlines Dave Sanders & Associates Ltd
Tel: +44 20 8750 3415 Tel/Fax: +44 1257 278767
Fax: +44 20 8759 1987 Email:
http://media.lufthansa.com