Would you have known?

Never drunk anything more than £7 so would have no idea

My DS was a sommelier in a Michelin star restaurant. It used to break his heart when business types would just pick 'the most expensive wine you've got' as a way of showing off to each other. It used to upset him as he really did know about wine and care about it.

Mine is £3.69 from Aldi so I doubt I'd know.

I would have had no idea annsixty I may have thought it was a particularly nice wine but that price would not have entered my head. Yes 'perks' which are accepted as the norm in certain spheres really bug me, MPs, business men, sportsmen etc. All groups who don't need subsidising.
Yes I can understand your son's feelings Jane10 good wine like good food should be appreciated for its own sake not for pretentiousness.

That anyone has the money for a bottle of wine costing £200 is a shocker to me, but that a bottle of fermented grape juice could possibly be worth £4,500??? You see the rich really could solve so many social problems if they out their minds and wealth to it.

put their minds

I would love to taste that £4,500 wine and have an expert, like your son Jane10, explain why it was worth so much. I love good wine, but can only afford reasonable wine nowadays, although I do sometimes push the boat out. I think I ‘d rather drink water than very cheap wine.

I'm a heathen - I much prefer younger wines. Ditto: cheapo Aldi suits me fine!

I probably would have thought it was awful ! I don't drink at all and can't "get" the fuss over vintages .
Having said that , my Cousin had us round for Dinner when I was 21 , he opened a "Special" bottle and I had a sip , made a face , everyone else ooo ed and aaa ed , he asked me what was wrong and I told him it tasted "flat" , seems I was right , he was tricking everyone and it was a special vintage ok , but it had been bottled during the war and not treated correctly

I wonder if the table whokd ordered ‘Blossom Hill’ got a bill for £4,500!
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Yes I would have known, I always read the label and it would have been obvious from the start.

The most expensive wine I have had was a £75 bottle a present from my brother in law- very ordinary table red in my view.

Not sure how these businessmen get away with it - my husband had to declare all his expenses to HMRC!

And if three of them had polished off the first bottle I would doubt they needed a second of the same vintage!!

I have never bought a bottle of wine for more than £10 and even that was pushing the boat out ! Usually pay around the £6 mark.

I would never order a bottle for £200 anyway so definitely wouldn’t know the difference between that and one costing £thousands. I’m not sure how they would even get away with it on expenses annsixty as there are quite strict HMRC guidelines .

I almost always try to find a premier inn or similar for our lads (that includes DH) when they are out on site, where you can get a rather good meal deal . I allow £10 on top of this for “sundries” and DH quite often treats them to lunch of an exciting McDonalds or similar out of his own pocket. Living the high life eh?

No wine is better still for me.

I quite enjoy a glass of wine with a meal or if I feel like it. My sommelier DS occasionally very kindly gives us bottles of wine that he tells me are good or somehow special. I have to smile and nod enthusiastically but can't say I particularly notice the difference from my usual.
That said, twice recently I've had a glass of wine in a restaurant that I've really enjoyed. It was noticeably good. So much so that I sourced the supplier and ordered some direct from them. I can really only manage one glass at a time though so opened bottles languished in the fridge. What a waste. I'll stick to tap water!

yes I would have known because I always check the label before the bottle is opened and I would have said it was the wrong one ( what a shame I would have missed the experience). The most expensive bottle of wine I drank retailed at £250 and was from the cellar at Buckingham Palace ( I could tell you but would then have to kill you). We enjoyed the experience and the backstory but would never have paid that much. I guess the wines referred to here would retail at about half the restaurant price

Yes, I wonder how they got it through the books.

And when they ordered the second bottle, did they not notice it tasted/looked different to the first bottle?

There was a (jokey) tweet posted saying they were the ones who had the wine and it was better when they’d added the lemonade and ice cubes. ?

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I certainly wouldn't know. But then wine and I don't agree anyway.

I read that the restaurant said on Twitter - “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.”

Glad the staff member is OK. An honest mistake.

All the "mystique" about wine is just rubbish dreamt up by the "experts" and advertising agencies.. Every week you read of "experts" raving about "the lingereing" taste of tarmac, hedgerows, orchards, petroleum and God knows what else.... old socks maybe? Amazing that so often they carry on with their ludicrous comments and fail to mention grapes at all. An alien reading their drivel would believe that wine is made of anything but grape juice. One memorable comment from an "expert" was that she likened this "fine and noble wine" to the "sleek prow of a submarine breaking the surface". Please! What drugs is she on? Last week it was revealed that a labotarotory had created copies of some of the supposedly finest wines from chemicals (not a grape in sight) ....blind tastings by "experts" chose the synthetic products and rejected the actual wines. So you see, all utter nonesense to take money off the gullible. Buy what you like and never more than £5 or £6. Even then the wine in the bottle is costing about 30p. The rest of the money is the bottle, label, vineyard and retailers profits.

I have to disagree, * maxdecatt*. I have been to a few wine tastings and when you are taught what to look out for you really can begin to understand the complexity of a good wine, rather like a good cheese.

Well I’ve been to many wine tasting events and got to know two MW quite well - they’ve never used language like that and were just wanting to enhance people’s enjoyment and knowledge of wine at all price levels.