A Waiter Served Diners A $5,700 Bottle Of Wine By Mistake

Diners in a Manchester, UK, steakhouse got a hell of a treat with their steak this week. According to a tweet from Hawksmoor Manchester, one of the best restaurants in England’s Northwest, the lucky diners were accidentally given a bottle of Le Pin Pomerol 2001 — which retails for £4,500 ($5,700) per bottle on the restaurant’s wine list. The bottle they should have received, according to The Guardian, was a Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 2001 which clocks in at a more — cough, cough — affordable £260 ($330).

Evidently, the snafu wasn’t caught by either the server who grabbed the incorrect bottle or the diners. Management noticed the mistake after the diners were already enjoying the vino. The restaurant then tweeted out the mistake with a bit of good humor and no ill-will towards the wine-lottery winning diners or their mistake-making server.

This bit certainly stands out, “To the member of staff who accidentally gave it away, chin up! One-off mistakes happen and we love you anyway.” It’s nice to see a restaurant not lose its cool when it loses, checks calculator, $5,370 on a single bottle of bougie wine. They went on to post the two bottles side-by-side to show that while the vintages (years) were both 2001, it was just a simple mix up.

The Guardian quoted the Hawksmoor manager explaining that “a member of staff picked up the wrong bottle, mistaking it for another Bordeaux of the same vintage.” The manager continued, “the wine went out and was served to the customer. The customer didn’t know.” Good on the manager for a very “these things happen” level of chill.

This whole story leaves us wondering how often this happens in places that leave super high-end bottles stored with more, ahem, accessibly priced bottles. Either way, some mystery couple got a chance to drink a bottle of stellar wine and a server learned a valuable lesson without losing their jobs. Sounds like wins all around to us.

(via The Guardian)