Le serveur se trompe et sert un Château Mouton-Rothschild à 2.000 dollars par erreur

VU DANS LA PRESSE - Deux carafes contenant deux vins très différents ont été malencontreusement inversées, pour le plus grand plaisir de certains.

Un verre de vin rouge (illustration)

Crédit : Donireewalker

L'erreur a coûté cher mais les clients sont ravis. L'équipe du restaurant Batlhazar, à New York, a récemment accueilli à l'une de ses tables un groupe d'hommes d'affaires de Wall Street. L'un d'entre eux décide d'offrir à ses camarades la bouteille la plus chère de la carte, un Château Mouton-Rothschild 1989, 2.000 $.

Mais au même moment, un jeune couple de clients a également commandé du vin, un pinot noir à 18 dollars la bouteille. Les deux bouteilles sont respectivement placées dans des carafes et, on l'aura compris, finiront mal aiguillées, à la mauvaise table.

Comme l'explique le magazine Decanter, repéré par CNEWS, les hommes d'affaires dégustent le pinot noir, l'un d'entre eux vantant sa "pureté", persuadés de boire un grand cru. Le couple, quant à lui, reconnaît que le vin est étonnamment très bon et s'amuse à mimer une dégustation très solennelle.

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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.

Une publication partagée par Keith McNally (@keithmcnallynyc) le 21 Oct. 2020 à 6 :32 PDT

Sur Instagram, le gérant du restaurant Keith McNally concède avoir songé à ne rien dire aux clients quand, 5 minutes plus tard, il a découvert la méprise. "J'ai bien senti que ce n'était pas un Mouton Rothschild", affirme l'un des hommes d'affaires tandis que le couple ironise : "C'est comme une erreur de la banque en notre faveur".

Hors de question de priver les chanceux du grand cru qu'on leur a servi par mégarde, le jeune couple a donc pu en profiter jusqu'à la dernière goutte.

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