He helps sell wine in the sky

DALLAS — In coach class, wine comes in plastics cups, poured from little screw-top bottles.

But for those holding premium tickets on American Airlines, in-flight wine service is intended to inspire.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier maintains 15 different wine lists for passengers in first and business class, specially selected for various routes. At any given time, "we have more than 60 wines in service and another 60 queued," said Richard Vine, who has spent the last 20 years as American's wine consultant.

Vine, a retired Purdue University professor of enology, scours the world's leading wine-producing regions several times a year in search of the best vintages.

He never set out to be an airline wine consultant.

After a turn in the Navy, Vine got his start in the industry "dumping 40 pounds of grapes at a time" while working as a cellar worker in New York during the early 1960s.

Eventually, he earned a doctoral degree from Mississippi State University, which is where American found him in 1985.

American changes its wine list monthly, posting a 38-page pamphlet online describing each route's selections in detail.

Each wine list includes two reds, two whites, champagne, dessert wine and sometimes a sherry.

Flights to Asia incorporate a pair of sake selections. The carefully researched service hasn't gone unnoticed by fliers. "We have customers ask where they can buy the wine themselves," said Mary McKee, American's managing director of in-flight products.

Indeed, premium-class passengers who pay between $3,000 and $10,000 for their seats regularly examine wine labels and quiz flight stewards about the vintages, said travel expert Terry Trippler of Cheapseats.com.

"If you're paying that kind of money, you expect fine food and wine," said Trippler, who only flies in first and business class and generally opts for either dry champagne or vodka tonic with lime.

The attention to detail is in response to the growing awareness about wine among American consumers. Wine surpassed beer for the first time this year as America's favorite alcoholic drink, according to a Gallup Poll. And U.S. consumers are expected to account for 25 percent of all global wine consumption by 2008, according to the French trade group, VinExpo.

While business travelers choose an airline principally on its routes, schedule and fares, food and wine play an important part in the decision, according to London-based Business Traveller magazine.

"Many frequent fliers want a selection that includes prestige wines, ones which they know the name of, and would regard as special occasion wines," said Tom Otley, the magazine's editor-in-chief.

Under Vine's hand, American's wine service won top honors in 1995 in Business Traveller magazine's "Cellars in the Sky" competition.

It was the first U.S. airline to earn that distinction. American has won numerous other awards from the magazine since then.

Vine doesn't just pick the wines featured in-flight. He bargains for price and quantity. And unlike some airlines, he also negotiates on how a wine will be promoted during a flight.

For some wineries, "we've become part of their business plan," he said.

"That gives me one more bargaining chip because they don't have to spend as much on marketing."

100 wineries a year

Choosing wine for American's in-flight service represents a yearlong endeavor.

A marketing firm in California serves as Vine's eyes and ears for many of the airline's U.S. selections. Leads on new trends and up-and-coming vintners come from national and international wine competitions. In a given year, Vine visits about 100 wineries.

Red wines served today were reserved at least two to three years ago, and port is reserved at least five years in advance. "If we don't get to them when they're babies, we won't get them," Vine said.

For white varietals, such as sauvignon blanc and pinot grigio, he plays growing seasons off of each other, focusing on northern hemisphere growing areas in the fall, and southern hemisphere ones in the spring.

"That way we always get them fresh and crisp," Vine said.

One popular red wine on American's December service is the 1999 Clos du Val, a cabernet sauvignon from Napa Valley that retails for $25 to $30 a bottle.

"Now that's a good cork," Vine proclaimed after opening the bottle for a recent tasting. The end has little staining from wine, a good sign.

Pressing the glass into his face, Vine inhaled deeply and took a drink. "That," he said, "is liquid velvet."

But even though Clos du Val is one of Vine's favorites on the current list, it's not right for flights to every market.

"This is muscle wine," he explained.

"The British like it, but the French, they like their own from Bordeaux. And the Swiss, they prefer more fruit, like a pinot or a shiraz."

Wine selections are made "with careful attention to ethnic, cultural, seasonal and stylistic differences of each market," Vine said.

And with 15 different wine lists, American can experiment with smaller wineries, treating customers to their vintage for a short while before it's depleted.

Smaller, specialty wines

Many airlines solicit bids for wine — an approach that leaves little room for smaller, specialty players that can't accommodate such large orders, said Anthony Dias Blue, author of "Anthony Dias Blue's Pocket Guide to Wine 2006" and Singapore Airlines' wine buyer for the last 16 years.

The result is that American can offer very drinkable wines, even with budgetary constraints.

"(Vine) has made it interesting by using wines from Chile and Argentina and South Africa instead of just going from the usual California large labels," said Dias Blue, an executive platinum flier on American.

"If you're onboard American in business or first, you're going to get a very drinkable wine. That's not true for some of the other domestic carriers."

American buys some 260,000 cases of wine each year, with purchases as small as 25,000 cases.

As much as 35 percent of wines that make the list are what Vine refers to as "nuggets" — deeply discounted wines being sold in advance of a new release, kind of like shopping an end-of-season sale.

The result? Top-notch wines at significant markdowns, McKee said.