Recognizing a grand cru from a most ordinary wine is far from easy. The following mishap is a delicious example. This New York fable features a couple, a restaurant owner and four Wall Street businessmen. Keith McNally, the manager of the French restaurant Balthazar, located in New York, who details the story. on Instagram, as our colleagues from The voice of the North.
That day, four wealthy businessmen are seated. One of them orders the most expensive wine on the menu, a 1989 Château Mouton Rothschild, $ 2,000 a bottle. Keith McNally is responsible for pouring the precious wine into a decanter himself. At the same time, a young couple asks for the cheapest wine on the menu, $ 18 a bottle, also poured into a carafe. This was to be expected: the two decanters are reversed and served to the wrong customers.
“Like a bank error in our favor”
But the salt of the whole story is not only due to the grand cru referral error. Because the reaction of the protagonists seems all written. “One of the businessmen, who invited the other three, considered himself a wine connoisseur,” explains the restaurateur. Enthused and proud in front of his guests, the man praises the “purity” of the drink and its great qualities. The young couple, for their part, persuaded to drink cheap wine, “jokingly pretended to drink expensive wine and parodied all the manners of a wine snob.”
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Five minutes will be enough for the restaurant team to notice his blunder. But in this case, “should we admit the error or allow businessmen to continue drinking cheap wine in blissful ignorance”? Honest, the boss will eventually confess. “The Wall Street businessman responded by saying, ‘I thought he wasn’t a Mouton Rothschild!’ The others at the table nodded, ”says the restaurant owner. The two young people, of course, took the news with a smile. “It’s like a bank error in our favor”, they rejoiced. The high bill will therefore fall on the restaurant owner who will take the news with a smile, to the point of sharing his story with the whole world.
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