Diners mistakenly served a £4,500 bottle of wine instead of the £250 red they’d ordered thought it was so tasty they asked for seconds.
The two men had been enjoying a meal at the upmarket Hawksmoor steak restaurant in Manchester in 2019 when a ‘mortified’ staff member realised her error.
The customers – who had actually ordered a bottle of Chateau Pichon Longueville Contesse de Lalande – asked for a second Chateau le Pin Pomerol but were told they couldn’t have one – because, unsurprisingly, it was the only one in the cellar.
Restaurant chief executive Will Beckett has now spoken to the Go To Food podcast about the viral incident.
Mr Beckett attributed the mistake to a new assistant general manager working at the chain’s Manchester branch at the time when ‘two guys’ ordered a bottle of wine.
Mr Beckett explained: ‘And yeah, it’s like a spenny bottle of Bordeaux, 200-something quid.
‘She trots off to a wine room… has a quick look around, grabs bottle, comes back, opens it, says is this the bottle, [they say] “yep, yep, yep”.’
‘[She] pours the wine, goes about her business. About an hour, they’re like, “can we have another bottle of that”?
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Pictured, right, the wine the customer was set on ordering when he was handed the £4,500 red (left)
The lucky diners had been enjoying a meal at the upmarket Hawksmoor steak restaurant in 2019 in Manchester when a ‘mortified’ staff member realised her error
‘She’s like, “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”, goes back, it’s weird, there isn’t another bottle of that. That doesn’t usually happen.’
He added: ‘I think at that moment, she’s like, “oh my f***ing god, I’ve given them a bottle of Chateau Le Pen 2001”.
‘Four and a half thousand pound bottle of wine.’
He said the staff member ‘styled it out at the table’ and told the customers ‘I’m really sorry guys, we don’t have any more of that’.
Mr Beckett continued: ‘They’re like, “oh no problem, maybe we’ll have something, something, something”, they got another bottle of wine. Paid and left.
‘And obviously, end of shift, she says to the general manager at the time, “what’s happened”?
‘So I get a text message, middle of the night, wake up and read at quarter to seven in the morning, “Will, this has happened”.’
Mr Beckett’s tweet about the incident went viral and saw reservations for the restaurant skyrocket
Mr Beckett said he was using Twitter a lot of the time and so posted about the mix-up.
On the social media site, he wrote: ‘To the customer who accidentally got given a bottle of Chateau le Pin Pomerol 2001, which is £4500 on our menu, last night – hope you enjoyed your evening! To the member of staff who accidentally gave it away, chin up! One-off mistakes happen and we love you anyway.’
Mr Beckett said he closed the app and then realised later on the tweet had gone ‘crazy viral’.
He added: ‘I think it got like, I don’t know, like 65,000 likes, you know, 20,000 retweets, like millions of views.
‘And over the course of 24 hours, this story turned into a global news story.
‘People who work here’s parents were calling them from like Australia, Croatia, Chile, to kind of say, we’ve just seen your restaurant on the television.’
Mr Beckett revealed the company had made ‘way more money’ than was lost because of the blunder, which saw diners flock to the restaurant in their droves.
He said: ‘And I mean, Hawksmoor got busier for like, it just had this little blip for a couple of weeks.
‘We made way more money with that than we lost by giving away that thing.’
Hawksmoor, which came second in Time Out’s top 16 eateries in the city, boasts that the vintage is a ‘tremendous effort’ on its menu
The restaurant, which came second in Time Out’s top 16 eateries in the city, boasts that the vintage is a ‘tremendous effort’ on its menu.
‘Its deep ruby/plum/purple colour is accompanied by an extraordinary perfume of creme de cassis, cherry liqueur, plums, liquorice, caramel, and sweet toast,’ it says.
The pricey bottle of plonk is the most expensive wine on offer and the beverage is listed under a section headed ‘rarities’.
If the lucky diners had ordered the cheapest bottle of red on the menu – a 2014 Armigero, Sangiovese Riserva – for £26, the eatery would have been out of pocket by £4,474.
The second priciest bottle is a 1996 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, which would set them back £1,750.
Chateau Le Pin, which crafted the drink, is described as ‘built on the bedrock of the twin factors of excellence and rarity’ on the website Cult Wines.
Located in Bordeaux, it is one of the smallest estates in the region and produces some of its most expensive wines.
The rarity of the red is the reason behind its sky-high price, which is expected to rise over time as more of the finite stock is drunk.
