WHERE THE GRAPES OF GAFFES ARE STORED

That's one
pricey
mallard.

Many years ago, my late great friend Bert Gould came over to the house for dinner with a $50 bottle of Duckhorn Cabernet. He had once ordered it at a Las Vegas restaurant. As usual, the price was jacked up 100%; his date, needless to say, was impressed that he had splurged on her, so I trust he got something other than a "Thank you" in return at the end of the evening. 

After our evening with Bert, my wife and I agreed that whether at $50 or $100, the wine didn't live up to our expectations. Don't get me wrong. It was excellent, and certainly worth, say, 20 bucks. OK, 25.  But double or quadruple that? I expect to be knocked off my seat, picked up, and knocked off again. 

Were our hopes set too high? Do we have palettes fit only for the good not the great? Perhaps we're just too plebeian, members of the masses rather than the elite.

Or are we? For that matter, are you? If you're one of those timid souls who, when dining at a fine restaurant, need to ask the server -- or, if it's really fine, a sommelier -- which wine goes best with your Chicken Tagine or Grilled Bavette Steak, worry no more! You know why? It doesn't matter!  And that's been proven by one of New York's most noted restaurants.

Balthazar was also one of the Three Wise Men.
Wise enough to know a good wine from plonk, I bet.

Located in SOHO (that means  south of Houston St., for you Brits), Balthazar has been serving up superb meals for the hoity-toity and their wannabes since 1997. I took my wife there for her birthday last year, and had a marvelous time until the bill arrived.

Balthazar was recently in the news, which is often a dicey thing for a restaurant. This time, however, it was strictly for laughs. Servers mixed up two decanters of wine -- one, ordered by a couple, cost $18; the other, for a table of four businessmen who dropped $500 for the privilege. And by $500, I mean each.

Hint: if it comes in
these glasses, you've
got the cheap stuff.

Or, just to make it sound even more ridiculous, a $2000 bottle of wine. And none of these people -- not the couple nor the suits with deep pockets -- could taste the difference. In fact, one of the businessmen "tasted the cheap wine before bursting into raptures about its 'purity," according to owner Keith McNally. 

Cheap wine is right! It likely costs nine bucks at your local liquor store.  Hell, I wouldn't pay nine dollars for a bottle of wine, and here were these jackasses treating it like something out of Thomas Jefferson's personal collection. $2000 - $9 = $1991 worth of embarrassment for the wine phonies.

Even taking into account that the wine in question (Chateau Mouton Rothschild, 1989) would cost only a grand retail, shouldn't you still be able to tell the difference between that and something 14 year-olds would swig at a party? I mean, you can tell the difference between a Rolls Royce and a used Chevy just by sitting in them. But you can't tell a "good" and "cheap" wine apart by tasting them?

Keith McNally quite rightly let the couple drink the Rothschild for $18, thereby losing two grand in the process.  He sure as hell knows the difference between the two wines now.

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