on coping with C19 lockdown

[bad hammy]

Staff at Balthazar poured the two wines into identical decanters, but the one containing Mouton Rothschild 1989 was accidentally sent to the young couple’s table, said the New York restaurant’s owner, Keith McNally.

Four Wall Street businessmen at another table had ordered the Bordeaux First Growth – the most expensive wine on the restaurant’s list at $2,000 (£1,528) – but were served the $18 Pinot, the restaurant’s cheapest.

Another call of BS is that whenever I order a $2,000 bottle of wine (ha!) I want it opened & decanted at my table in front of my eyes

[Atticus]

Four Wall Street businessmen at another table had ordered the Bordeaux First Growth – the most expensive wine on the restaurant’s list at $2,000 (£1,528) – but were served the $18 Pinot, the restaurant’s cheapest.

Did they even notice?
We ate at Bern's Steakhouse in Orlando once and the wine list was at least an inch think and some bottles went over $20000. We declined.

I just googled it and there's a 1947 Chateau Latour there for $30,000. You'd have to be REALLLLLLLLY thirsty to buy that.

[Conor Dary]

Yes it is rather weird...$18 for a bottle of wine in a fancy restaurant is very unusual....that's what I pay for in the grocery store for wine.

Also as BH says on expensive wines in restaurants they generally open at the table. Not unknown to pour crap into old bottles.

So yes the BS factor is not low.

[lonewolf]

I suppose people have different priorities but my SW Oklahoma depression-era birth and raising cannot comprehend such extravagance. If the intent is conspicuous consumption, why not just hand out business cards with your financial statement?

[Conor Dary]

Trump campaign flouted agreement to follow health guidelines at rally, documents show


In the days leading up to the Sept. 30 event in Duluth, Minn., local officials had privately pressed the campaign to abide by state public health guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, documents show. In response, the campaign signed an agreement pledging to follow those rules, limiting attendance to 250 people.

On the day of the rally, however, Trump supporters flooded onto the tarmac at Duluth International Airport. They stood shoulder to shoulder, many without masks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/trump-duluth-rally-covid-guidelines/2020/10/23/10c1367c-1317-11eb-82af-864652063d61_story.html#click=https://t.co/xdUYZ4ptQN

[Conor Dary]

I suppose people have different priorities but my SW Oklahoma depression-era birth and raising cannot comprehend such extravagance. If the intent is conspicuous consumption, why not just hand out business cards with your financial statement?

My parents lived through the depression without much money and yet knew how to have a good time including drinking decent wine when they got older.

[Atticus]

All I can think is all the ways I could have better spent that money!!!

[Conor Dary]

Like what?

[J Rorick]

If the intent is conspicuous consumption, why not just hand out business cards with your financial statement?

Businessmen woo other businessmen with expensive (and conspicuous) wining and dining. They write it off as a business expense. I suspect that's when most of these expensive wines are bought. I also suspect that's been done a time or two in your oil industry, Lonewolf.

[Atticus]

Like what?

Christmas gifts, for starters!

I have 10 grandchildren - start college funds!

Take my wife on a nice vacation.

My imagination runs wild . . .

[Conor Dary]

Folks traveled all over the world....

5 children...many grandchildren....all went to college...

An $18 bottle of wine isn't going to break anyone...

[tandfman]

An $18 bottle of wine isn't going to break anyone...

Nor is a $2,000 bottle of wine likely to break anyone who orders such a thing. As J Rorick points out, someone wrote that off as a business expense. Given the current US tax laws, it did not cost the guy who picked up the check OR his business $2,000.

[Conor Dary]

Sometimes...but not always by any means...


The great wine fraud

Rudy Kurniawan amassed a vast fortune trading in rare wines. Trouble is, he was bottling them himself. Ed Cumming reports on a vintage swindle

In one auction at Acker Merrall & Condit in 2006, Kurniawan sold $24.7m of wine, beating the previous record by $10m. These were the days of the first dotcom boom, when Silicon Valley had more money than sense, a combination which has always been drawn to fine wines.

In time, however, discrepancies appeared in the market. Bottles of Clos St Denis from Domaine Ponsot, of vintages between 1945 and 1971, started to turn up. Laurent Ponsot, the head of the house, found this surprising as his family only started making the wine in 1982. He set out to investigate.


https://www.theguardian.com/global/2...intage-swindle

[Conor Dary]

One group calls itself the Angry Men because of the way they feel when they take a good bottle to a party and find everyone else has bought plonk. At Angry Men dinners, $200,000 might be drunk in a night.

https://jerryrothwell.com/2016/01/01/sourgrapes/

[Atticus]

Folks traveled all over the world....5 children...many grandchildren....all went to college...
An $18 bottle of wine isn't going to break anyone...

Oh no! I meant the $2000 bottle.