How to Make the Wine in Coach Taste Better

The wine in coach isn’t always that great.  While some airlines offer higher-end half bottle options, the wine sometimes needs time to breathe–more time than you have on the flight.

Apparently, you can improve the taste of the wine by hyper-decanting it.  So what fancy tools are needed to hyper-decant?  None.  Just your hand and the bottle.

wine airplane coach

Quartz posted:

More recently, alternative decanting techniques have shown pouring wine back and fourth between two pitchers or even putting wine in a blender can improve the flavors.

Wine naturally can taste more alcoholic and bitter in flight because of the altitude and the dryness of the cabin air. But none of the usual decanting methods is advisable on an airplane—traditional decanting takes too long, pouring back and forth between two cups is a drippy proposition, and blenders are not allowed in carry-on baggage in the US.
Shaking your wine in its bottle is the viable alternative.

I was a bit suspicious.  After all, I’ve been promised false things (like making champagne in your soda stream–DO NOT TRY AT HOME).  So I Googled around.

Every other blog post I found talking about this method sang its praises.

Vinepair, for example, tried it out:

A few weeks ago, I was forwarded an article in which the writer lamented that when he ordered wine on a plane, it never seemed to taste as good as it did when he was on the ground. He then said he had developed a trick to fix the problem – shake the wine. I was dubious that this simple trick would really make the wine taste better, since we don’t recommend the whole hyperdecant idea for when you’re drinking on the ground. So, on a recent flight, I decided to test it for myself and have another passenger try the wine as well. After shaking the wine, I asked the passenger to try both the shaken wine and the unshaken wine. The test was blind, she did not know which glass was shaken and which one was not. Guess what, the trick works!

Here’s a video of them trying it out:

I haven’t tried this yet, but I probably will on my next American Shuttle flight, where wine is free in coach.

Do you think it’ll work?

About Jeanne Marie Hoffman

Former bartender, still a geek. One equal part each cookies, liberty, football, music, travel, libations. Stir vigorously. +Jeanne Marie Hoffman Jeanne on Twitter

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4 comments

  1. Well – it isn’t in a can, so that’s one plus point already.

  2. My technique to make wine taste better is to have 6 beers first

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