Wine bottle misunderstanding

[ufo_investigations]

THIS is one expensive misunderstanding.

A man dining at a steak house in New Jersey got more than he bargained for when the $37.50 bottle of wine he thought he ordered turned out to be worth an eye-watering $3750.

Joe Lentini went out for dinner with friends at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City last week, the Star Ledger reports.

“I asked the waitress if she could recommend something decent because I don’t have experience with wine,” Mr Lentini told NJ.com. “She pointed to a bottle on the menu. I didn’t have my glasses. I asked how much and she said, ‘Thirty-seven fifty.’”

Turns out that bottle of wine, a 2011 bottle of Screaming Eagle, Oakville, costs $3750.

When the bill came, “we all had a heart attack,” one of Mr Lentini’s dining companions, Don Chin said.

They tried to negotiate the bill with the waitress and restaurant management but were told the best price the restaurant could offer was $2200. Mr Lentini and his two dining companions split the bill.

Mr Lentini said the wine wasn’t even that good. “It wasn’t great. It wasn’t terrible. It was fine.”

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/diner-forks-out-thousands-for-bottle-of-wine-after-asking-wait...

I reckon the waitress is at fault because she told him "Thirty-seven fifty" she didn't say "Three-thousand seven hundred and fifty".

[lyndal1838]

I would not have had to pretend....I would have had a heart attack.

As it was in America there is no way the waitress would say three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars....they express it as thirty seven hundred and fifty dollars.  If you miss the word hundred you are in strife.

[tcmsecretuseid]

I agree, the waitress was at fault. The guy doesn't know much about wine, and he doesn't have his glasses on? Come on, you don't say thirtysevenfifty.

My BIL was at a restaurant in Napa Valley last month. He was looking at the wine list, and saw a bottle(Screaming Eagle) listed for $45,000. Could you imagine ordering a bottle of wine that costs as much as many cars?

On a side note:How do you say the year? Twenty-fourteen, or Two-thousand-fourteen?  

[lyndal1838]

---

@tcmsecretuseid wrote:

I agree, the waitress was at fault. The guy doesn't know much about wine, and he doesn't have his glasses on? Come on, you don't say thirtysevenfifty.

My BIL was at a restaurant in Napa Valley last month. He was looking at the wine list, and saw a bottle(Screaming Eagle) listed for $45,000. Could you imagine ordering a bottle of wine that costs as much as many cars?

On a side note:How do you say the year? Twenty-fourteen, or Two-thousand-fourteen?  

---

My OH says Twenty-fourteen but he is Australianised...been here nearly 40 years.  But he still speaks in hundreds...thirty seven hundred rather than three thousand seven hundred.

His US based family and Canadian cousins say Two-thousand-fourteen.

[tcmsecretuseid]

I say twenty-fourteen. I started saying it that way after 2009. Twenty oh one sounded weird to me. 

This story sounds crazy to me. Why would a waitress suggest a wine that costs that much? I would expect a sommelier to be involved in  a decision like that. 

This reminds me of the Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie story. A woman orders a cookie, and asks the waitress how much the recipe costs. She answers, two fifty. The woman gets her CC bill, and is charged $250.00. Blah blah blah... and so the story goes, and we end up with a"free" recipe posted on the internet.  

Too bad we are not all getting a free bottle of wine! 

[siggie-reported-by-alarmists]

The waitress wasn't wearing  her glasses either....... 

[amalan11]

I read another version of the story where the paper pointed out that that particular wine sells for $900 in the liquor stores so they were charged way too much anyway

[icyfroth]

I reckon it's the waitress's fault. She was asked to reccommend a good wine and she picked the most expensive on the menu, making it sound inexpensive by the way she worded the price.

No doubt hoping for a percentage of her takings.

What a con.

God what makes a wine worth over $3k or even $900?

The guy obviously didn't know wine if he had to ask the waitress to make a reccommendation.