By mistake, a couple who ordered $ 18 wine were served $ 2,000 wine

When the restaurant managers realized they had made a mistake, they called the restaurant owner in horror.

The staff of the New York restaurant Balthazar mistakenly served a 1989 Chateau Mouton Rothschild wine worth two thousand dollars for a bottle to a young couple who ordered a simple $18 pinot noir. At the same time, the cheap wine was served to four businessmen from Wall Street. However, they did not notice the substitution until the owner of the restaurant admitted the mistake. The owner of the establishment, the famous New York businessman Kate McNally, told about this story on Instagram.

“It all started with the fact that four businessmen ordered a bottle of “the most expensive red wine” – Chateau Mouton Rothschild for two thousand dollars. When the businessmen made the order, the manager poured wine from that bottle into the decanter at the waiter’s station. Around the same time, a $18 bottle of Pinot Noir (the cheapest version of red wine in Balthazar) was ordered by a young couple – and another manager poured the contents of that bottle into an identical decanter. When the first manager came back, he took Pinot Noir for Rothschild and served cheap wine to businessmen,” McNally said.

According to him, the businessman who made the expensive order called himself an ardent connoisseur of wine. While showing off to the guests, he tasted the cheap wine, and then expressed his delight at its “purity.”

When the restaurant managers realized they had made a mistake, they called the restaurant owner in horror.

“I immediately rushed to Balthazar,” McNally writes. Businessmen were in a great mood, they did not notice the substitution and sincerely believed that they were drinking the most expensive wine in the restaurant. This presented me with a difficult choice: to admit the mistake of the managers or to leave the clients in blissful ignorance.”

For some time McNally hesitated whether to tell the guests the truth, but he considered it unfair to deprive a young couple of the opportunity to enjoy expensive wine.

“I decided to tell everyone the truth,” McNally admitted.

According to the restaurant owner, after the mistake was revealed, the businessmen were quick to declare that they guessed that they were drinking cheap wine. As expected, the young couple was delighted and compared the confusion with decanters with a bank mistake in their favor.

One night at Balthazar four Wall Street businessmen ordered the restaurant’s most expensive red wine: a $2000 bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild. One of the two managers transferred the Bordeaux into a decanter at a waiter’s station. Simultaneously, a young couple ordered the restaurant’s cheapest red wine, a $18 Pinot Noir, which they wanted pouring into a decanter. These two very different wines were now in identical decanters. Mistaking the $18 decanted wine for the $2000 Rothschild, the first manager formally poured the cheap wine to the businessmen. According to the manager, the host considered himself a wine connoisseur, and showing off to his guests, tasted the cheap wine before bursting into raptures about its ‘purity’. The young couple who ordered the $18 Pinot Noir were inadvertently served the $2000 Chateau Mouton Rothschild. On taking their first sips of what they believed was cheap wine, they jokingly pretended to be drinking an expensive wine and parodied all the mannerisms of a wine snob. Five minutes later the two managers discovered their error and, horrified, phoned me at home. I rushed to Balthazar. The businessmen’s celebratory mood was clearly enhanced by the wine they had mistakenly thought was the restaurant’s most expensive. This put me in a dilemma: whether to come clean and admit the manager’s mistake, or allow him to continue drinking the cheap wine in blissful ignorance. Taking the latter route would certainly be the easiest. Also the cheapest. It was unthinkable at this point to pull the real Bordeaux from the young couple’s table. Besides, they were having too much fun acting out drinking a $2000 bottle of wine. I decided to veer from my normal behaviour, and tell both parties the truth. The Wall St. businessman responded by saying, “I THOUGHT that wasn’t a Mouton Rothschild!” The others at the table nodded their heads in servile agreement. The young couple were ecstatic by the restaurant’s mistake, and told me it was like the bank making an error in their favour. The trouble was, it was me who was down $2000, not the bank. Both parties left Balthazar happy that night, but the younger of the two left happier.

A post shared by Keith McNally (@keithmcnallynyc) on Oct 21, 2020 at 6:32am PDT

“The trouble was, it was me who was down $2000, not the bank.,” said the restaurant owner.

He clarified that the story ended well – both groups left the reasturant happily.

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