Obscene wine prices and a brawl over a table: this is the Hamptons.

Veuve Cliquet at $550 and that is only the starting point.

Money does not equal brains.

That appears to be night club bottle service pricing, which, in fairness, is not really meant to reflect the price of the beverage but rather the price of admissions and seating. You can buy a bottle of Absolut vodka for several hundred dollars as the bottle service price at Las Vegas nightclubs, for example.

I still agree it’s ridiculous, of course.

Yikes. I’d rather just be elsewhere

And the list doesn’t even include vintage dates.

Bruce

For those prices, you’d think they’d spell “Angel” correctly.

This is completely absurd but since I never visit those clubs and never will I does´t care. On the other hand wine prices in good restaurants turn into a similar direction. Mark ups of 400 or even 500 % are no exception in some michelin stared restaurants. I find this very disappointing and the day will come when I completely stop eating in this type of gastronomical establishments.

. but the Moet mag is a bargain

Well…with a name like Stratis Morfogen…one can hardly blame someone for wanting to punch him out.
Tom

I’m not a big club guy (though if you ever have the chance to go on someone else’s dime, you should! It’s fun!)

That being said, the people paying these prices have plenty of “brains”. To quote one of my friends (who’s about as smart a guy as I’ve ever met, and who was a big club guy in his late 20s):

"I go to a club with three of my friends on Saturday night. We split a $800 bill. (This was ~ 10 years ago.). With that kind of bottle service, we generally find someone to take home.

You take your girlfriend out on a date. You spend $200 on dinner and a nice bottle of wine. You take her home.

We both spent $200 to have fun and get laid. Who’s the stupid one?"

Not surprised you would do that kind of calculation; might as well price a prostitute and see if you can save some money!

I suppose the disgraceful reasoooning is: Better for your ego to think you did seduce the girl… plus you get for free if the girl was what you were going for… Footballers do it a lot in UK if tabloids are to be believed.

Many women have fun dancing and meeting (and going home with) men in clubs too, just like many women enjoy nice dinners. It’s all around the same price, and it all has the same endgame.

Yeah I hear you. After the demise of my last relationship I did that very same math…you come out cheaper dealing with a woman on a cash basis for certain. Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Charlie Sheen after being sentenced and questioned by the judge why a man like him would pay for sex - " I don’t pay them for sex , I pay them to leave."

These are club prices for bottle service… not a wine list at a local restaurant.

These prices are par for the course at nightclubs.

Funny that this is news… this last weekend (Memorial weekend) in South Beach every last club was full to capacity charging at least the prices you see on that list, and there were 195 arrests

David - If you’re intelligent enough to know your personality can’t do the trick, then yes, it might be the smart approach…
What is this - the 80s?!?

It’s just a certain small segment of our society and the way they do things, the way they hook up, the way they spend their money. It’s definitely not for me, and I imagine not for most of us here on WB, but then I’m sure plenty of other people think we are idiots for buying $200 bottles of wine to store for 20 years at 55 degrees and then sip at an offline with other dudes we met on the internet and typing up florid tasting notes.

I wonder how the “bottle service” model took hold. The more obvious thing would just be to charge for what it is people are really buying - entrance to the club, a table, maybe access to some VIP area within the club. It seems like it would be easier just to call a spade a spade. But somehow the fiction of paying $500 for a $30 bottle of Champagne or $20 bottle of vodka as a surrogate for all that caught on. I guess there’s no real harm as long as everyone understands the transaction, but it’s kind of a curiosity.

Bingo. I think I’ve spent less than 10 nights in a club in my entire life, but I don’t self-regard my choices for how I entertain myself or meet women as being “smarter” than others’, especially since I know plenty of whip-smart people who have a great time clubbing. All we’re talking about here are different choices for entertainment and hooking up, priced similarly.

You just took away my will to live.

If your friend needs an $800 bottle service(10 years ago) to get a girl, he’s got more problems than paying the bill…