If It's Moving, Don't Drink It
The Sunday Age
Sunday December 1, 1996
The late Geraldine Pascall, a pioneering wine writer known for her outspoken views, used to say, "Never eat or drink on anything that moves." She included aeroplanes, trains, revolving restaurants, buses, trams and boats.
But there once was a time when you could get on a plane and even in steerage/cattle class you could get a decent glass of wine. Hickenbotham wine makers were supplying Ansett with little bottles from various wineries all over Australia.
The selection made the rival airline (then TAA) look pretty ho-hum. These days, there is no real difference and you can reason that you use the airlines to go from A to B and not necessarily for a wine tasting.
The same applies to trains. Some years back I compiled the wine list of Victorian wines for the Melbourne-to-Sydney run. In the spirit of state rivalry, a Sydney colleague contributed the other half, using wines from New South Wales.
I don't think the service exists any more. On most trains, if there is a drinks list at all, it ranges between a choice of heavy or lite beer with maybe a wine cooler. Geral-dine's advice rings in your ears.
It's nothing like the days when the Mat-son line had an airline route be-tween San Francisco and Hawaii. Being a steam-ship company, things were ship-shape and Bristol fashion.
The seats in the DC6 could be swivelled so a "captain's table" could be assembled in the aisle. The galley was as good as a restaurant kitchen and the wine list stooped no lower than first-growth French reds. The food was reported to be excellent and they handed out complimentary Cuban cigars with the vintage port.
Think about that the next time you are in the middle of a row of seats at the blunt end of a packed people truck. That bottle of cheap wine looks even worse.
To add insult to injury, you can peek through a chink in the curtain that screens the folk in the pointy end and get a glimpse of a bottle of Petaluma or Mountadan on the trolley. Even worse, they are still half-full at the end of the flight!
It's tempting to make a bid for the glass. Wine by the glass is booming in restaurants and bistros, so why not in the air? It's probably too complicated. If you remember how difficult it is to change a $5 note at the drinks trolley, it doesn't bear thinking about.
I once made the mistake of taking the train from Melbourne to Ade-laide on New Year's Eve. The bar in the buffet car shut at 11pm. There were more transit police than passengers and if you tried to BYO it was a $200 fine.
In restaurants that are stationary there are some very good wine lists, particularly by the glass.
There is a growing trend of linking wine with dishes on the menu. Blakes at Southbank is a good example.
In the air, you take what you get even if you aren't eating. It's easy to take a cheap shot at airline food but it should be remembered it is produced under complicated circumstances. There is the compulsion to eat the stuff because you've paid for the ticket. After years of constant travelling, you finally shake off that syndrome.
Pity you can't BYO food and wine. A spread in a hamper with a bottle of Krug would take the pain out of travelling, but then you couldn't get the basket under the seat in front so it would have to go in the overhead locker and then the person next to you might want to try your Beluga. How would you keep the wine cold? Better make it a bottle of red. Enough of the whimsy.
The Hickenbothams had it right but that was in an era when airlines were interested in frills rather than discounts. After all, you are going from A to B, and hopefully there is a decent restaurant or bar at the other end.
© 1996 The Sunday Age