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Southwest airlines has issued a press release discussing their newest changes and additions to their in-flight drinks list. Did they make a wise choice in regards to their wine choices?
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Mike Supple: You're watching "Screw It" on SuppleWine TV. I'm your host Mike Supple. I hope everybody had a fun 4th of July, and if you traveled, I hope it was safe and economical. Because in this economy, nothing beats the budget airlines.

In a couple of months I'm going to be travelling between Boston and Baltimore and I ended up booking a flight on Southwest that going to cost me less than a third of what it would have cost to take a train, which is kind of ridiculous. I love the budget airlines, so any time some news pops up I take a closer look - particularly the press release that Southwest had this last week about changes to their beverages on board. They did some customer surveys and said in accordance to their customers' wishes and desires they were making some nice upgrades to on board beverage selections. Let's take a closer look and see what they actually did.

[Close-up of the new Southwest in-flight menu showing "Coastal Ridge Chardonnay" and "Coastal Ridge Merlot" for $5.00 each.]

As you can see they have two new wine selections - both from Coast Ridge winery. They have a Chardonnay and they have a Merlot. Both listed at $5. And that's for a 187 milliliter bottle, which is a quarter of a bottle, so it gets you a good sized glass out of that, maybe about a glass and a half or so for five dollars.

Now, they're touting this as something that's fulfilling their customers' desires - something that will improve the plane experience. I'm more than a little skeptical, and I don't really see why this is reason for a press release. In my opinion it's kind of like putting out a press release saying, "We've switched from Bud Light to Coors Light." Coastal Ridge is a giant bulk winery. It produces a lot of wine that's not poor quality, it's nothing bad, but it's also nothing to write home about. It's nothing you're going to get excited about; nothing you're going to remember. They're not flawed, but they're not good.

Coastal Ridge wines are made by a giant conglomerate called Bronco Wines. This is the driving force and the mind behind Charles Shaw wines, better known as Two Buck Chuck. Fred Franzia, the owner of which, is famous for saying many times that no bottle of wine should be more than $10. Well, I disagree with him on that point. I also think that if he's putting all wines on a scale of nothing more than ten dollars, his wines should really not be anything more than a quarter. There's nothing wrong with them, but they're just not fun, they're not exciting and you're not going to get anything out of them. If you're paying $5.00 for a quarter of a bottle, Fred that puts your wine at $20 for a full bottle - it's just not worth it.

I don't know whose best interests Southwest had in mind when they were changing to this new Coastal Ridge selection, but it certainly wasn't mine. There are too many wines out there to drink things that just aren't impressive, and for five dollars a glass - which means $20 a bottle - you can get something so much more enjoyable. You don't even have to know anything about wine. For $20 a bottle you can find something that will have a lot more complexity, a lot more flavor, a lot more...everything, that will actually blow you away. Whether you know anything about wine or not.

When it comes to my hard-earned money, I'm not spending $5 on something I'm going to forget about ten minutes later. It's just not worth it.

Kudos to Southwest for trying, because on a long cross-country flight sometimes a glass of wine really is just the thing that I need to get me through that entire length without going insane. The crying kid behind me; the other kid behind me kicking my seat; the guy in front of me who keeps putting his seat all the way back so I can't even eat off of my tray. It drives me insane. But besides that, while Southwest's on the right track, people don't have to be willing to buy first class tickets to want to enjoy a glass of wine during a flight. It doesn't mean people who buy economy tickets or bargain tickets, like me, are going to be duped into spending money on wine that's not worth it.