Selected Cuba accommodations for the discerning traveler

In May of 2015, I wrote a blog post titled "Short- and long-term implications of US-Cuba travel liberalization for Caribbean tourist destinations" wherein I posited:

• In the short term, a slow but steady increase in the number of US tourits visiting Cuba
• Displacement of European and Canadian tourists by US tourists if liberalization accelerated
• US tourists will demand higher levels of service than the OECD tourists they will be displacing 
• A need for between 98,000 and 116,000 additional hotel rooms, in the longer term, to support the potential 3.2 million yearly US tourists.

In my recent trip to Cuba, I kept an eye open for currently available accomodations with which these higher-services-demanding US tourists would be comfortable.

Accomodations on the island currently fall into two categories: Hotels and casas particulares. The casas particulares came about as a part of the government's "initiative" to allow private ownership of selected types of businesses and allows a homeowner to rent a part of the home to a visitor. This type of accomodation varies all over the map in terms of consistency of service and location, is relatively bare-boned, and has limited applicability to the non-adventurous US traveler.

More to the liking of this type of tourist will be the hotels located to the west of the old town and currently grouped around the area close to the beginning of the Malecon, the 5-mile-long boulevard that stretches from Vedadao to Old Havana. I will share some pictures of two of these establishments in this post.

Traveling in from the airport to Havana, my eyes soaked in the countryside of this heretofore unvisited land. And everywhere you looked, you saw signs of disrepair: the cars; the buses; the buildings; and the people. After about a 40-minute ride, we arrived at a reasonably modern-looking structure, our hotel for the duration, the Tryp Habana Libre. This hotel is one of three in the area currently managed by the Meliá Hotel Group. The hotel's location is indicated on the map below.

Source: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/

Tryp Habana Libre had been owned by the Hilton Group, under the name Hotel Habana Hilton, before being expropriated by Fidel Castro . The hotel became Fidel's HQ when he entered Havan ain January 1959 and was eventually nationalized, along with all other US hotels, in October 1960.

The hotel has a total of 25 floors with standard accomodations below the 20th floor and executive-level accomodations on floors 20 and above. These two groups both have separate check-in and breakfast facilities. The hotal has seven associated restaurants and a pool on the topmost floor. The pictures immediately below were taken in our room and show, in my opinion, the type of accomodation that a discerning traveler would be comfortable with.

In addition to Tryp Habana Libre, we spent a fair amount of time at the Hotel Nacional, the 85-year-old luxury hotel that sits on a hill on the Malecon in Vedado and affords absolutely beautiful view of sunsets, the ocean, and people, both on the Malecon and on the hotel grounds. Some pictures of/from the Malecon follow.

Hotel Nacional from the upper dining room at Tryp Habana Libre

Jesse Jackson -- contemplating the future at
Hotel Nacional 

Dining Room at Hotel Nacional

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

2016 Blog year in review and 2017 prospects

This past year I continued to build a body of work, with an especial focus on Greek and Italian wines and wine history. I have also begun an effort to further improve the cohesivness and accessibility of the blog content.

North Greece
The early part of the year was devoted to detailing the story of the North Greece wine region using data collected during an EWBC pre-Conference trip sponsored by Wines of North Greece. At the conclusion of the series the reader would have been cognizant of the environment, the wines, and the issues that market players confront as they strive to make quality wine as well as improve the standing of Greek wine on the world market while confronting strong headwinds at home. The individual posts produced as a result of that trip and subsequent efforts are shown below.

• North Greece
• Physical Environment
• Physical Environment vs W-MEA Model
• Viticultural Environment
• Varieties 
• Xinomavro
• Variety, growing regions, and wines
• Malagouzia
• The Malagouzia story
• Deep Dive
• Gerovassiliou history of the variety
• Rootstocks
• Vine Training and Vineyard Management
• Wine Production
• The Wines of North Greece
• Wine Regions
• Amynteo PDO
• Alpha Estate
• Ktima Kir-Yianni
• Goumenissa PDO
• Naoussa PDO
• Ktima Kir-Yianni
• Rapsani PDO
• Tsantali Rapsani
• Slopes of Meliton PDO
• Domaine Porto Carras
• Mikrochori
• Wine Art Estate
• Other
• Domaine Stelios Kechris
• Tasting Greek Wines
• Sparkling and Whites
• Reds

Italy
The Italian campaign rolled out on a number of fronts. First, I visited Sicily and, with the leadership and direction of the most connected man on the island -- Brandon Tokash -- was able to meet, amd spend quality time with, some of the leading winemakers in broader Sicily and Mt Etna. Combining that primary material with secondary data from Nesto and di Savino's The World of Sicilian Wine resulted in a number of high quality posts on the regional landscape, wine infrastructure, and wines.

I also paid a visit to Umbria and the highlight of that trip was a visit and tasting at Paolo Bea.

Another angle of attack in the Italian campaign was participation in, and reporting on, themed tastings of significant Italian wines organized by Antonio Galloni and Vinous and held in both London and New York. In many of the cases the winemaker was also in attendance at the event. These tastings allowed deep historical perspectives on the wines of Gianfranco Soldera, Vietti Rocche di Castiglione, Bartolo Mascarello, Ornellaia, and Masseto. And my efforts did not only focus on the actual wines tasted. If I had not previously profiled the winery or the region associated with the producer, I did so prior to publishing the post on the tasting.

Unfortunately for Piemonte, this year the region has been in the news for reasons other than its great wines. Sometime in August it was announced that the Vietti family had sold its winery and vineyard holdings to an American company named Krause Holdings. This news caused an uproar among Barolo fans. I had sat next to Luca at the Galloni Vietti tasting and had visited the estate a few weeks later as part of the launch of Suzanne Hoffman's Labor of Love. I wrote a couple of relevant posts following the announcement, one looking at the implications of the sale for the broader Barolo region and the other looking at the practical implications for Krause holdings of being in control of both the Vietti and Enrico Serafino (an earlier purchase) properties. Some of the fears I had voiced in the first post on the broader implications will be validated if a rumored purchase of Roberto Voerzio by LVMH does come to fruition.

The History of Terroir
In his sweeping treatment of ancient versus modern wines (Inventing Wine), Paul Lukacs identified the seminal terroir events in France as the demarcation of the Burgundy vineyards by the Cistercian monks beginning in 1098 and the AOC system implemented in the early 20th century. But this apparent terroir desert misses the true formative period -- as well as the ups and downs -- of this concept, beginning during the Renaissance and continuing for two centuries thereafter. A period and history that is detailed in Thomas Parker's Tasting Terroir: The History of an Idea. I summarized Parker's history in a number of blog posts and further summarize the effort in the timeline below.


Book Reviews
I read a number of excellent wine books during the course of the year but only reviewed three of them on the site.

Suzanne Mustacich's Thirsty Dragon is the War and Peace of wine literature. I had to read it twice in order to tease out the many threads and fully internalize and embrace the story that it related. It is a tour de force, throughly researched and impeccably sourced with 40 pages of chapter-specific notes and an index; but the fullest potential is unrealized. That being said, the reporting and analysis contained within the book are exceptional. The epilogue, titled Shangri La, is an especially cogent and insightful piece of analysis.

While a lot of attention, as regards Piemontese winemaking, has revolved around the battle of the modernists versus traditionalists, or the Burgundization of Barolo, the region has also been undergoing an under-reported transformation: the rise of women into the wineries' leadership ranks. And it is this under-explored story that Suzanne Hoffmann captures, and tells effectively and empathetically, in her initial publication Labor of Love: Wine Family Women of Piemonte.

The World of Sicilian Wine (Bill Nesto MW and Frances di Savino, University of California Press(UCP)) is simply the best region-specific wine book I have ever read. It is comprehensive, detailed, informative, well-structured, revealing, and an ode to research well done. In addition, the writing style makes it easy to read and comprehend -- traits not equally shared by all books issuing from UCP.

Blog Organization and Futures
As shown in the bulletized material regarding North Greece above, I have begun a process of tightly tieing all posts to a region. This allows for a more cogent presentation of the material as well as providing me with a road map of uncovered areas. I have begun to do this with all new posts and will go back during the course of the next year, to painstakingly allocate each of my past posts to its appropriate slot(s).

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This has been a personally rewarding year. I hope that you have derived some value from my musings. I hope to continue along the same path during the course of the upcoming year: learning new things and sharing them with you.






©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Antonio Galloni and Vinous Ornellaia and Masseto Retrospective (1995 - 2010), from Magnum

Antonio Galloni had had to work overtime in order to convince Axel Heinz (the Ornellaia and Masseto winemaker) to agree to a wine tasting that would, essentially, allow direct comparison of the estate's two major wines. Antonio's powers of persuasion carried the day and now here we were, at Bouley Test Kitchen on December 5, 2016, ready to participate in the Ornellaia and Masseto Retrospective (1995 - 2010), from Magnum.

As early arrivals stood around the dining area chatting, or searching out their appointed seating, we were served 2008 and 2009 Pierre Peters Champagne. The Champagne was then followed in short order by a number of passed Hors-d'Oeuvres, each, in its own manner, pleasing to both vision and palate.

We were eventually called to order and grudgingly took our seats with longing, backward glances towards the origin point of the Hors-d'Oeuvres. Antonio shared the particulars of the tasting with us:

• The wines would be tasted in flights arranged from the youngest to the oldest
• Every wine was to be poured from magnum
• Each magnum had been sourced directly from the winery
• The wines had been opened at 5:30 pm that day and were all in good condition
• The tasting included all of the significant vintages falling between 1995 and 2010. 

From an operational point of view, the tasting would be broken into four flights, each flight containing two vintages and each vintage having both an Ornellaia and Masseto included. Each flight would be paired with a course, but the wines would be presented at the table prior to the associated dish being served.

Amouse Bouche

Flight 1: 2010 and 2007 Vintages
Axel was called upon to introduce the first flight. He characterized the 2007 vintage as an early year with cool conditions during harvest while the 2010 was the latest ripening vintage he had ever seen up to that time. 2010 was not, he said, the most typical vintage of the estate.

Both of the 2010s were still very young to the taste. The Ornellaia showed powerful, intense dark fruit, some structure, and a licorice coating on the palate. I found the Masseto to be unyielding on the nose. Full finish with a hint of green.

The 2007 Ornellaia was broader-based than the 2010. Dark, ripe fruit. The 2007 Masseto was perfumed with hints of balsamic and licorice. Tight. Rich dark fruit and some green on the palate.

Forager's Treasure of Wild Mushrooms with
Sweet Garlic and Special Spices

Flight 2: 2006 and 2004 Vintages
According to Axel, 2006 was a strange wine. It had not been easy to make but turned out well having, as it did, a richness, high tannins, high acidity, and concentrated fruit. The 2004 was a textbook vintage with ideal conditions yielding grapes that had ripened evenly and uniformly (masseto.com).

The 2006 Ornellaia was the first of the wines tasted to exhibit any noticeable acidity. Rich and intense, with juicy acidity surrounded by a beautiful core of fruit. Good levels of fruit and acidity in the 2006 Masseto. Rich, structured, powerful, and balanced. This wine is a buy.

The 2004s were the first wines to show really well on the nose. This illustrated the relative youth of the previous wines. The Ornellaia had floral notes along with tea, licorice, and olives. Full-bodied. Heavier than the earlier vintages. The Masseto was a beautiful wine. Classic older Merlot. Granny's attic, spice, and a dankness. Weighty and structured.

Organic Millbrook Venison with Wild Pawpaw
Fruit

Flight 3: 2001 and 1998 Vintages
The 2001 and 1998 vintages are two of the most important reference points for the estate. Michel Rolland, the long-time consulting enologist for the estate, calls 2001 the best vintage that he has ever seen in Tuscany.

The 2001 Ornellaia presented cigar box, cedar, cocoa, and coffee. Diminished fruit levels and pleasing acidity. Classic Bordeaux nose. The Masseto had been decanted earlier in the day due to "tightness." It presented green pea, a mustiness, curry, and tobacco. Sweet ripe fruit on the palate. Axel feels that the 2001 is the most opulent Masseto that he has tasted.

The 1998 Ornellaia was a beautiful wine. Cigar box, tobacco leaf, and black fruit on the nose. Textured and structured. A "come-hither" wine. The Masseto presented cigar box, tobacco, orange peel, and spice. Textured and balanced with a long finish. Axel remarked on the "smoky tobacco leaf character" of both of the wines in the 1998 vintage.

Organic Colorado Lamb with Organic Snow
Peas, Sweet Peas, Fava Beans, Okra, and
Organic Rosemary-Perfumed Quinoa

Chef's Surprise: Eggs and White Truffles

Flight 4: 1997 and 1995 Vintages
According to Axel, 1995 was a cool-climate vintage while 1997 was the year that the estate introduced a second wine at Ornellaia.

The 1997 Ornellaia was a desirable wine with still a lot of life ahead. A little green pea and coconut on the nose along with a restrained orange peel. Fresh on the palate. Fine-boned and elegant. Long finish. The Masseto was all Grandma's attic, black fruit, cedar, cigar box, tobacco, and talcum powder. Elegant. Great weight on the palate along with tobacco, dark fruit, a savoriness, and spice. A lengthy, slightly pruney finish. This is one of the vintages where I distinctly preferred the Ornellaia to the Masseto

The 1995 Ornellaia was unyielding on the nose.  A little blue fruit. Tired. The 1995 Masseto showed tobacco and Granny's attic. Great acidity and sharp red fruit. Lengthy finish. An excellent wine.

Chef's Selection of Mature Artisanal French
Cheeses by Maitre Affineur Rodolphe le Meunier

Axel Heinz signing bottles

My memento

This tasting more than lived up to expectations. I went in looking to taste as much Masseto as I could and came away with  a new-found respect for Ornellaia. I will be buying that label in a more studied fashion going-forward, rather than reflexively, as I do today.

The dishes that accompanied the tasting were all of exceptional quality. The standoiut for me though was the Organic Millbrook Venison. It had a nice spicy undertone and was so tender that the knife glided through. Great texture.

This was a memorable evening. And I made a bunch of new friends at my table.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Ornellaia - Masseto Wine Dinner: Peering into the mind of Axel Heinz, the estate's winemaker

Masseto is one of my favorite wines, as evidenced by its frequency in my cellar and the number of mentions that it has received in my social media posts. As a fanboy, then, I had to be in attendance at the Antonio Galloni/Vinous Ornellaia and Masseto Retrospective (1995 - 2010) held at Bouley Test Kitchen in New York City on December 5th. And, ... Axel Heinz, the winemaker for both labels, would be guiding the attendees through the tasting of these, the greatest vintages of the estate (For the uninitiated, Masseto is a 100% Merlot wine while Ornellaia is a Bordeaux blend. Both wines  are currently produced at the Ornellaia estate in Tuscany's Bolgheri wine zone.).

The kitchen at Bouley Test kitchen

In his opening remarks, Antonio Galloni spoke to the genesis of the tasting. Five years ago he had organized a Masseto vertical which went up to the 1986 vintage, the earliest in the label's history. It had been relatively easy to get Axel to lead that event. Not so this tasting. Antonio had to work overtime to convince Axel to do this dinner because the estate does not like to show the two wines in opposition to each other. In his opening remarks, Axel validated Antonio's comment about showing the wines together. The estate views the labels as two separate and distinct wines and treats them as such.

Axel Heinz speaking to some of the attendees
prior to the start of the tasting

As it relates to Masseto, Axel sees the wine as almost an accident of nature. When Ornellaia began, a few estates in Tuscany had already planted Merlot. Ornellaia felt that it had to do something to differentiate itself from the 400-lb gorilla in the room (Sassicaia) and that imperative drove the development of Masseto.

The early efforts in this direction were spearheaded by Andre Tschelistcheff, the noted Russian-American enologist, who found the hill with the grey clay and encouraged the Ornellaia team to plant Merlot thereon. The first harvest was in 1986 and the resultant wine was labeled Merlot. The name Masseto appeared on the label for the first time with the 1987 vintage.

With the success of Masseto, the estate did not want to use the Merlot grapes from that vineyard in the Ornellaia blend. It was a full 10 years before Merlot vines planted in other parts of the property attained the maturity to warrant their inclusion in the blend.

Axel sees the Masseto vineyard as very complex (I have assessed the vineyard in a previous post), a complexity akin to Burgundy's Clos Vougeot in that it has three levels and the soils are heterogeneous. In some vintages, they end up with as much as eight separate wines which have to be combined into the final blend (The estate harvests, vinifies, and ages individual plots separately and deploys a team to compose the final blend prior to bottling.).

Approximately 100 ha of vineyards are dedicated to grapes for the Ornellaia blend with different soils, elevations, and expositions being the order of the day. Ornellaia is more of a left-bank wine and Masseto more right bank (if one thinks in terms of Bordeaux) and Axel feels blessed in that being in Bolgheri gives him a chance to employ both winemaking styles in the same location.

I sat next to Axel during the course of the dinner and took advantage to gain his perspective on a number of winemaking issues. One area of exploration was optimal picking time. He was adamant that you need to taste the grapes in order to make a determination as to the best time to pick. In his view, no amount of data can substitute for the taste of the juice on your palate and the crunch (or not) of the seeds between your teeth. At Ornellaia they like to pick ripe with excellent aromatics without pressing through into over-ripeness.

He talked about the difficulty of working the clay soils of the Masseto vineyards. In periods of rain, the soil absobs the water and becomes very heavy. After it has become saturated, pooling becomes a problem. When the soils become water-logged, they have to leave it alone for a few days before returning to work at it again.

I asked him about the potential for a cru Masseto wine; that is, a wine drawn exclusively from one of the three areas of the Masseto vineyard. He saw that as very unlikely. Even though there are, from time to time, temptations regarding some of the components from the middle vineyard, it is the balance that these three vineyards bring in the bottle that is the essence of Masseto. He indicated that many people have told them that they should make a Cab Franc wine but they feel that Ornellaia would be hurt if they went down that path.

In closing this part of my discussion of the tasting, it should be mentioned that the estate is currently building a separate winery to support the production of Masseto. This is the ultimate gesture in showing the world that these are two truly distinct wines. While the field operations will still be conducted by a single team, the two winery operations will be separate. According to Axel, if you make a visit request to Masseto, you will go to the Masseto winery and taste Masseto wines; and likewise for an Ornellaia visit.

I will go into the details of the tasting and dinner in my next post.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Some considerations when traveling to Cuba from the US

Havana is located 105 miles south of Key West but could be in the hinterlands of Inner Mongolia, given the historical lack of access. I recently traveled to the island and share some of the things to look out for in this post.

Source: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/

I was scheduled to fly out on Novmber 29th but this decision came under further consideration when Fidel Castro's death was announced on the 25th of the self-same month. This news gave me pause because of uncertainty about reactions on the ground as well as concern about traveling to an unknown place in uncertain times. But I persevered because of i) my perception as to the historical nature of the flight and ii) the risk that the incoming administration could roll back the program under which this travel was currently allowed. I relayed the specifics of the trip in a previous post.

As I am wont to do, I called AT&T from the airport seeking a voice and data package for the country to which I was traveling. If you are an AT&T customer traveling to Cuba, you are flat out of luck: AT&T has no communications package for Cuba. Their advice to me was to turn my phone off for the duration of the trip and to take advantage of wifi if/when I gained access to it. If you persist and use your phone, voice, data, and text services are very expensive.

Entry in to Cuba is slightly different than I had experienced in other countries. First, the documentation that you are requierd to complete before approaching the authorities includes a medical questionnaire. Second, there is a security screening just after clearing immigration. Third, there is a medical screening once you have successfully navigated the security screen.

Checked luggage is reclaimed beyond the medical screen and Customs Enforcement has both Declare and Nothing-to Declare channels.

Individuals traveling to Cuba are required to convert hard currency to Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC) in order to purchase goods and services on the island. The exchange rates are set by the government and are very unfavorable for the US dollar. During the time that I was there, US$100 yielded CUC87. One of the lessons that I learned from a seasoned Cuban traveler was that a US traveler should obtain Euros from their home banks and convert those to CUCs while in Cuba rather than doing a direct $ to CUC transaction. There are two currency conversion stations on the outside of the terminal building, one at each end. In addition, there are Cambios sprinkled throughout Havana.

You need CUCs in order to take a taxi into town. The average fare from the airport to downtown is CUC30.

Travelers to Cuba either stay in a hotel or in a private residence (casas particulares). In either case, it is the travelers responsibility to ensure that the lodging expenses are settled in CUC. These lodging expenses cannot be settled with an American credit card. In some cases a reservation will show that the stay is guaranteed by the American card but beware, a third party has to do the necessary transaction completion or you have to be prepared to pay in CUCs on your arrival.

Some specific financial issues to take note of: (i) US banks are barred from doing business with Cuban entities therefore US-issued credit and ATM cards are non-functional on the island; (ii) always carry more cash than you think you will need because you will not have the backstop of a credit card; (iii) you cannot wire money into Cuba from the US; and (iv) you cannot have someone send you money to Cuba by Western Union.

In traveling to the airport for your return flight, be sure that you know which terminal your airline departs from and provide that information to your driver. JetBlue, American and Delta fly in and out of Terminal 3. The distance between Terminals 2 and 3 is 3 kilometers. There is no inter-Terminal transportation so if you go to the wrong terminal, you will will incur a CUC10 - 15 taxi charge to get back on the right track.

Happy trails

©Wine -- Mise en abyme

The very predictable (fill in the blank) Barolo Estate sale

Late yesterday I saw a post from Anna Savino on the Barbaresco and Barolo Facebook page saying/asking "Heart is breaking ... did you hear about Voerzio?' A few queries were directed at her but she did not respond futher at that time. I had heard a rumor at the recent Cavallotto Dinner at La Pizza Fresca that Voerzio was up for sale but did not assign any credence to it at the time. So I asked if that was the issue that was causing her distress.

When I woke up this morning, I was greated by a loud verbal wail from Anna adding furher fuel to the fire and using the letters LVMH -- the company that is synonymous with luxury brands. I was intrigued and went looking around for further info. One of the boards had a petered-out thread that referenced a potential acquisition but Pernod-Ricard was the name bandied about there. I got some more substantive information later on in the morning which indicated that LVMH was believed to have purchased the Voerzio company.

And if that is the case, it would not come as a surprise to me. In August of this year, in my assessment of the Vietti sale, I wrote:

Now what are the implications of all this for the broader Barolo. There is potential for this being the tip of the spear. In a tight market, Vietti now has a competitive advantage over its neighbors. It's sources of supply are guaranteed and it is sitting on capital with which to make future acquisitions. In the podcast Luca described a property that was coming on the market but he would not bid on it because the vintner who sourced grapes from that property was a friend. With the Krauses as partners, that property could have come into his portfolio through a Krause acquisition, allowing him to hide behind the "they did it" mantle. No self-respecting market player can allow a participant to acquire and retain this type of competitive advantage without a response at some time down the road. Within that environment, the Vietti purchase is just the tip of the iceberg for Barolo: (i) All of the other vintners are facing the same pressures that Vietti was facing and drove them to this decision. (ii) Luca says there are a number of potential investors sniffing around the valley; therefore, it is only a matter of time before some of the folks seek to monetize their investments while preserving the fundamentals of the business.

Further, a little over a year ago, I lucked into predicting this event when I titled one of my posts "The Louis Vuittonification of Burgundy: A roadmap for Barolo?"

It will be interseting to see the details of this deal (if there is a deal) as they emerge.


©Wine -- Mise en abyme

Inaugural Orlando - Havana Flight: JetBlue accentuates the historicity

JetBlue inaugurated its spanking new Orlando - Havana route with an 8:29-am, Orlando-origin flight on Tuesday, November 29th. And if there was any concern about the incoming administration's position on the policies that made this flight possible, the airline did not allow it to affect the show that it put on for this inaugural flight.

I had been threatening to fly to Cuba for a while to report on the farm-to-table scene for my blog but had not taken any steps towards that end. This all changed when JetBlue announced the sale of tickets for the inaugural flight for its newly awarded route between Orlando and Havana. I saw the opportunity to meet my original goal while participating in what i perceived to be a historic event.

We had missed a recent JetBlue flight to NY so, to prevent a repeat performance, my wife had set the alarm at an ungodly hour. And a good thing she did. First off, everyone had had the same idea to get there early. Second, you needed to affirm, by affidavit, your reason for traveling to the island. Even if you had filed the affidavit online, you had to redo it manually because the online submittals had not linked to individual travel records. And, third, visas had to be purchased ($50) for each non-resdident Cuban traveling. All in all, a slow process.

JetBlue sought to make the process bearable. They had staff members aplenty on hand directing you to the right lines and handing out affidavits so that they could be filled out before approaching the counter. Staff members working "the floor" wore Tshirts which loudly commemorated the event. The lines were long but orderly and, judging by the number and (large) sizes of the checked luggage, were primarily populated by individuals taking advantage of the flight to visit family members on the island.

After check-in we headed towards the gate. And it was there that the show truly began. The flight was leaving out of Gate 1 and the airline had set up a VIP area just opposite. This area was populated with JetBlue executives, important travelers, and helpful staffers. Through her connections, my wife had snagged a couple of VIP pins for us so we were able to participate fully in the experience. A variety of Cuban foods (empanadas, cakes, pastries, flan, etc.) and brought a little bit of the island to the area. Warren Christy, a senior JetBlue executive, was taking the flight down and held a number of interviews with local TV newscasters.

Warren Christy of JetBlue

Parlo and Mrs Christy

We were among the last to board, grudgingly exiting the cocoon of the VIP area to traverse the press gauntlet that defined the path to the boarding gate.

Plane that was taking us down to Cuba at gate

At every step along the way we had been enthusiastically welcomed by JetBlue staffers. And the boarding gate and plane attendants were no exception. Every seat on the plane was adorned with a Cuban Flag and a swag bag.

The taxi was relatively short and we were number one for takeoff when we got to the runway. In his remarks, the pilot had indicated that the flight duration would be 1 hour and 1 minute. There was in-flight service but, due to the brevity of the flight, it was still ongoing when we started our initial descent.

JetBlue staffers waving us on our merry way

I normally like an aisle seat but, on this occassion, I took a window because I wanted a good view of the island upon our approach. I saw the initial dark-brown outline of the shoreline through white puffy clouds, a view which evolved into more structured forms of farmland and industrial sites as we traveled further inland.

At this point Warren Chrity took the microphone and thanked us all for being a part of this historic flight. He was the receipient of a warm round of applause. It was as though the travellers were saying "thank you guys for doing this."

The landing was flawless and was greeted with loud hoots, clapping, and waving of the Cuban flags that had been placed on our seats previously. As I exited the plane, I shook Mr. Christy's hand and wished him and his organization well on the new route. I am a regular JetBlue customer and a fan of the organization. They represented on this one.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme