The champagne in Spain falls mainly on the plane

In My Humble Opinion
1

I don’t want to say “pun intended” but…

Here is the scenario.

Picture this: Sydney 2008. I am about to celebrate a milestone in my life I didn’t ever think that I’d make (yay!)…

My special fella called me and said “fly up to see me!” He’s away at work somewhere that world wide travel brochures talk about (yay!)

I want to celebrate this milestone with him. I was given a very beautiful bottles of champagne. Such special bottles of champagne that they are worth more than the return airfare.

My question to you lovely, esteemed dopers (apart from the fact I am so excited about going tomorrow – yay!!) is thus:

Can I take champagne on the plane? I have transported bottles of wine before, but I have had this bottle for over a year. And it has a poppable cork in it. Will I get my luggage from the carousel and open my case to find my clothes dowsed in champagne (which might not be so bad, but hey, this is so special… if we dont’ drink it I want to be dowsed in it, not my clothes!!)\

2

Well, I know that there’s planes that serve champagne, so it can definitely travel in the cabin… if it wasn’t for the bloody safety regs!

A search for “llevar cava en avión” (hey, you mentioned Spain and champagne in the same sentence… we have to call it cava since champagne became protected) produces blogs and articles where people talk about traveling with one or two bottles of champagne in their suitcase with no problems. It’s still better if it can go in a box, etc etc, but there doesn’t appear to be more of a problem than with any other liquid.

3

Oh you rock! (I’m not actually travelling to Spain, but hope I do one day, and five hours in a plane to make it as far a distance from London to Spain… I think maybe…). You’re right about the onboard stuff, but I thought that it was all screw top.

4

The champagne is at several atmospheres inside the bottle. The curved-inside bottom helps it withstand the pressure differential.

The cork is actually not the weakest point.

I thuoght you might enjoy these webpages here, for three of the biggest winemakers in Spain. Codorniú and Freixenet focus mostly on cava, Torres has cavas.

5

As someone who enjoys Champagne, I would be very interested in hearing about these particular very expensive bottles.

ETA: Would they be worth more than an Economy, Business or First Class return ticket? :wink:

6

The inside of an aeroplane cabin is pressurised to the equivalent of 8,000 feet.

For what it’s worth, I recently flew back from Mackay in a Dash-8 with a bottle of cola to drink from and it didn’t do anything unusual besides provide me with carbonated cola-based refreshment for the duration of the flight.

There’s no problem taking liquids in the cabin on domestic flights, but they do need to be X-rayed.

Australia Post offer a specialist Wine Delivery Service that can get your wine there, too- might be worth looking into.

Congrats on whatever Milestone it is that you’ve reached! :slight_smile:

7

One of them was left as an inheritence by a wine connoisseur and a great friend. At the time that he died he told me 2010 was the absolute date that it could be drunk – he’d had it in his case for a while. What better time than your first wedding anniversary to crack it? It may be vinegar, it may not…

I am a wine nut too. Maybe you would be interested in a swap? What do you like?

8

Thank you lovely Martini :slight_smile: It’s my first wedding anniversary :slight_smile:

9

It’ll be fine, but as an FYI - a lot of the wineries and tasting rooms in this area sell these WineSkinsand Wine Bags for tourists to take their purchases back home in their checked luggage.

And you might just want to let the wine settle for 2 or 3 days before you open it.

Enjoy!