It was in the news: the New York restaurant Balthazar mistakenly gave a bottle of Mouton Rothschild worth $2,000 to a couple who had ordered an $18 bottle of "Pinot Noir". The wine waiter then served the "Pinot Noir" to some well-heeled businessmen who had sat down to believe they were drinking a top premier cru wine from Bordeaux. The wine waiter had used the same style of decanter for both wines and then mixed the containers up.
The businessmen commented on the purity of their wine. Possibly, they were drinking a wine made from 100% pinot noir but I doubt it at that price. The Mouton Rothschild would have been a blend of black grapes dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.
I have been in the fortunate position to go to a "business meeting" where the boss ordered a top red Bordeaux; fortunately, he knew what he was doing and none of us was so inebriated that we could not tell that we were drinking a top wine.
The couple joked that they were drinking a top wine but still did not realise the mistake. Perhaps, they had better palates than they thought or they were not letting on.
The restaurant could have let sleepings dogs lie and got away with the mistake. But the owner did not charge the businessmen so he lost a lot of money, but the wine would have been considerably marked up and the restaurant probably bought the wine years ago for a much cheaper price.
The couple had the pleasure of drinking a top wine for a peppercorn price.
It does not surprise me that none of the customers realised that a mistake had been made. The power of suggestion is so strong. The couple would have believed that they were drinking a bottle of cheap wine, and they were not trained to recognise a top-quality one. The businessmen believed they were drinking a top premier cru and judged that that is exactly what they got.
I have been on a number of wine courses where you are taught to identify a good quality wine that is good value for money. It is difficult, but you should be able to recognise a wine that can keep for a long time. A wine that can keep for a long duration and improve in the bottle in a cellar will not be cheap. The wine must be made from the best grapes and by winemakers who know what they are doing.
The Mouton Rothschild in question would have matured in the bottle and would have become lighter in colour, the tannin would have softened and the wine would have tasted concentrated and complex and the fresh fruit flavours of a young wine would have ripened. Anyone who has experienced drinking or just tasting the best wines, which have aged well, would have recognised that this was an exceptional wine. The businessmen may have been able to spot a good deal but not a good wine. If there was a wine enthusiast present then he or she would probably have been distracted and subject to the power of suggestion.
The power of suggestion is so strong that you should taste wines "blind" to assess them. The power of suggestion can fool anybody, and in my experience, even masters of wine are not immune and they can be fooled just as easily as anyone else. Some red Burgundy wines made from 100% pinot noir are quite light-coloured when young and could appear to have lightened from age - hence the confusion perhaps.
However, one sniff and an experienced wine taster would know the difference.
One thing is certain, you might be able to tell a Burgundy from a Bordeaux or a French wine from a Spanish one. But, identifying a particular chateau and its vintage is nigh on impossible only the actual winemakers and their assistants can do this.
My wife is from Champagne and she can identify wines from the north of the region as opposed to the south, and now I can do this. Her father was born in Burgundy but in the far north of the region: we have drunk so much wine from this area that we can recognise the wine style but not the producer and the year.
Wine drinking and identification is a subjective business, it is difficult to be objective but you can use wine tasting techniques to good effect as long as you keep your feet on the ground. You can be trained to recognise a good wine and better still a fine wine that doesn't cost the earth.
I hope that the couple were able to appreciate their good fortune and are now able to dine out on it. I hope that the businessmen could see the funny side of what happened and that they still enjoyed their wine and their good fortune in securing a good deal. This is what wine appreciation is truly about and it is not about being snobbish or looking down on anybody to make them look foolish.
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