Flight Attendant Served Fake Sparkling Wine In First Class — And Claimed It Was American Airlines Policy

A reader was flying American Airlines flight 3394 from Miami to Greenville-Spartanburg airport in South Carolina on Saturday when she may have had the worst drink ever served inflight to a passenger. She asked for sparkling wine, they didn’t have any, and so the flight attendant faked it giving her a mix of chardonnay and sparking water instead – telling her this was airline policy.

I never order sparkling wine or champagne on Delta domestically they serve in a can.

Generally when I’m on American in first domestic I will order something because they have the half bottles domestically from Miami to [Greenville-Spartanburg] and I [had two] glasses and then I asked for the third one and the flight attendant brought something that tasted bad.

It tasted terrible and she leaned over to me and she said they are told if they’re out of champagne to mix..Chardonnay and sparkling water.

The passenger was aghast, figuring that offering this – and lying about it! – was “the worst possible thing you could do to your customers.” Why lie? Just say we’re out! Several things about this whole thing strike me.

• There’s no way this is actually company policy – that the airline tells flight attendants to mix chardonnay and sparkling water whenever they’re out of sparkling wine. I do not even need to ask them. First, while I think the approach to wine American has taken in the past several years is terrible, it’s not that dumb. And second, if there were a service memo instructing flight attendants to do this, I can assume it would have been leaked ot me a long time ago.

• They’re sure going through a lot of sparkling wine on a 640-mile Envoy Air regional flight. Regardless, running out of sparkling wine on a regional flight is a provisioning problem.

• What proportions would you even use in mixing chardonnay and sparkling water, if you were trying to mirror bad sparkling wine?

• It’s going to give you a bad wine spritzer, right? Thin, less aroma, softer acidity and basically just a flat, washed out fruit profile. If it were an oaky chardonnay it’s going to be really weird because oak, butter, and vanilla aren’t going to survive dilution. You’ll get less integrated bubbles, no yeasty character, and more of a ‘something is off’ taste even than ‘this is cheap’.

• I think the lesson of a flight attendant serving carbonated water and chardonnay and calling it sparkling wine is – far from being an airline instruction – flight attendants learn their procedures as much from each other (galley gossip) as from their employer. And when they don’t go through recurring service training, just get sent memos, inconsistencies develop, including ones that are as nearly inexplicable as this one.

I never touch the stuff on board. I drink a lot of water. When I drink something else, it’s because I want to enjoy the flavor. Domestic flight wine selection doesn’t fall enough into that bucket, but I decided to give it a try on the flight I was on while writing this. It was a Bottega Brut, a $7 retail split and honestly not industrial swill.

Now, American Airlines serves $8 wine in international first class on a good day. Their business class champane is arguably the best among U.S. carriers, while United’s wine program is clearly best overall.

Delta, like American, invests only in its champagne – very much not premium! But nobody really does much with wine on standard domestic flights. Here’s how each approaches domestic bubbles:

• Delta serves Une Femme “The Betty” Sparkling Brut which customers generally seem to hate. I’ve never been interested in trying a glass (or can) even for the science. About the most positive review I found was “I don’t think it’s as bad as others claim! It just tastes like cider!” Another similar 3.5 review offered, “they got rid of the liner plastic smell and taste.”

• United’s Gambino Prosecco is certainly better.

• American doesn’t promote what it’s actually serving, at one point it was La Marca. 3 splits of that runs $15 at Target. And it was still better than what Delta serves. I wouldn’t actually order the Bottega Brut under normal circumstances – I’ll save myself for a nice bottle. But there was honestly nothing wrong with it.

To be clear, three glasses of Bottega Brut is more than I’d want. Some people want more than that! Here’s a passenger on an equally short Miami flight with a full bottle of wine out on their tray.

Years ago an Emirates flight attendant caused a worldwide stir when caught pouring champagne from a glass back into the bottle. And an American Airlines flight attendant was caught recycling orange juice in the galley. I want to believe these were pre-poured predeparture beverages that didn’t get taken (even so..).

After the pandemic, the American Airlines flight attendants union demanded a two-drink limit for passengers on each flight. I suppose if they only board enough for two drinks that’s one way to accomplish it, and this flight attendant was just going above and beyond!