He needed those bottles!
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One sort of sad story:
I went to an Ultramarine dinner at Majordomo right after it opened, and ran into Jonathan gold, who I’d met several times before. We had a nice little chat, I took a picture of the space, which Jonathan gold was in, and in the background of the picture is Charlie and some other berserkers lol
Maybe a month later I found out Jonathan had passed of pancreatic cancer :(. Life is short.
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I’ve told this story before, but was in the mountains for a little date weekend with the wife. Went to what was supposed to be the best restaurant in the town, which was Italian. Had a decent wine list, but nothing really special. The only name I really recognized was Gaja, so I ordered a recent vintage of Barbaresco.
We were chatting up the somm and he was young, but seemed nice. Went down to the cellar and came back up with a different wine. Evidently he couldn’t find the vintage we ordered but did find a 1967 Gaja Barbaresco buried in the back while he was looking. He said there were new owners and hadn’t done inventory yet. The old owners had been there for 50 years and had all kinds of wine down there that hasn’t been inventoried in decades. He said he’d sell me this at the same price, which was under $100. Sold! Was absolutely delicious, naturally.
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Boring in comparison to most already posted, but it was interesting to us. We were dining at the Little Nell in Aspen. A young, debonair somm helped us. He stood out with his table service and guidance in choosing a wine. The next day we ran into him running on a challenging mountain side trail with his dog. He remembered us from the night before. A few weeks later he was on the cover of Wine Spectator.
And the rest is history for Bobby Stuckey.
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I hope the somm was exaggerating, but that was my only visit. I know that he was a consummate professional and I made not only his evening but probably his week. He got to open great wine for two people who loved it. Apparently that did not happen often enough for him.
I just finished dinner at my home with friends, including a board geek. We had some great wine. I’ll post tomorrow, new thread coming.
Forgive me for being dense, but how does buying trophy wines off restaurant lists and then reusing the bottles for fraud pay off?
It would cut into your loss, but it seems like you couldn’t recover the restaurant price selling the fraud.
Having the actual label makes it easier to copy it; take off the label, scan then laser print.
Also reinforces your credentials as a baller so ppl don’t suspect your wine.
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Plus please remember that Rudy came from Serious Money.
I don’t think he was living off of his fraud, I think it was just a hobby; got a little out of control.
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I had a Rudy incident as well in a restaurant. We went the wonderful restaurant Montrachet, and I had brought a bottle of 1900 Taylor, which I wanted to share with Roy Hersh the Port guy and confirm it was authentic. It was magnificent, and the somm came over asking if I would give a really good wine guy a small glass. I was fine with it, it was the end of an evening and we had drank a fair amount. The somm returned with a glass of some Burgundy and mentioned the other guest was Rudy.
When we left, one of our group asked for the bottle, and the somm returned embarrassed as apparently Rudy had stolen the bottle.
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Well not a “wild” event, one time attending a conference in Cleveland I stopped in at the hotel bar after dinner and before heading back to my room and of course found some co-workers to have a drink with. I ordered a Cognac, I think it was just a Courvoisier VSOP, standard bar fare. Well the “kid” behind the bar apparently hadn’t poured much cognac because he found one of those balloon glasses and proceeded to fill it up until it was about half full. I gave him a good tip but I definitely didn’t need the eight ounces of Cognac for an after dinner sip, especially the next day.
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So many great stories. Hard to follow, but here’s what I got:
Wine Royalty
Took my wife to New York in 2010 for a significant birthday and scheduled to go to a Broadway show. Best meal to this day that I have ever had was at Le Bernardin before the show. Asked the sommelier to pair wines and had a lengthy conversation with him over many courses. Great guy. Remarked that his name had to be destiny. A few years later Aldo Sohm becomes quite famous.
Bad (sort of)
First meal back in a restaurant after COVID shut everything down. Went to one of our favorite local places which had always had great food and service. So much turnover and all the waiters were new. Order a bottle of Rivers-Marie Pinot Noir. The waiter proceeds to brutalize the capsule and then the cork. Once the cork is out, he expresses loudly: “Wow. First Cork removed EVER!”. I asked him to decant the bottle. We are in mid-conversation and he comes back with a granite wine chiller, plops it on the table and proceeds to try to pour the wine into the chiller. I have never before and never since actually grabbed the arm of a server. He was very apologetic and very earnest. No harm no foul.
Good
Was invited to a nice resort to play golf for my birthday by a good friend. Probably 2016 of 2017. My friend paid for my room, paid for my golf and paid for all meals. I was trying to figure out a way to pay him back “a little”. We were going to meet at the bar before dinner. I got there early and asked the bartender what was the best glass of liquor that he had. He said they had just gotten a bottle of 25 year old Old Rip Van Winkle (a bottle that appears to be selling for $50K+ on-line now). I buy a glass for myself and a glass for my friend for $256 each. A splurge, but really the only way I was going to get to pay for anything that weekend. The General Manager/Sommelier comes to serve it out of curiosity. My friend comes down and tries it and does not like it (it was pretty awesome, but its’ high proof and he likes mellower mixed drinks better). I gave his glass to the General Manager. We go to dinner and have a great meal. Order 2 bottles of Saxum (2007 James Berry and 2010 Bone Rock). Since I ordered the expensive wine, I insist that I pay for them when the bill comes. My friend says sure, which was a huge surprise. The General Manager had zeroed out the bottles.
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This is why I can never drink Maker’s Mark again.
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not a restaurant and I’ve told this story. Fu says I tell it too often. It was 1993 and Beverly Hills Wine Merchant owner Dennis Overstreet was having a dinner to show the recently released 1990 DRCs. It was at his house in the Hollywood Hills. It was raining heavily and my Vette was all over the road. I almost turned around a couple times but I made it.
There were 4 card tables of 4 set up in his family room with the kitchen adjacent, no walls between them. A young chef between jobs was cooking and the first course rocked. So I spent most of the evening standing by him asking questions and watching. He was amazing. Wines of course were great.
I told the chef he was really good, that he should have his own restaurant. He said he was opening one soon, up in Napa, called the French Laundry.
Wines were great and his food was even better.
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My Keller story is a bit more recent.
We got married in one of TK’s restaurants (buyout) and he helped design our menu (made a few changes, upgraded some things free of charge)
So we had a tradition of celebrating each of our anniversaries at a different Keller restaurant. Our first was at Bouchon Napa, where we drank some of the wines we bought from Bouchon LV. Our second was at Bouchon LA, where we were recounting the story to our server and someone from the next table exclaimed “that’s a great story!” Of course it was the great chef himself. When it came time to pay, the server told us our dinner was on Chef Keller.
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about 10 years ago we were at Addison in La Jolla and I always gave somm Jesse Rodriguez a glass of whatever I brought, this time 99 Rouget Cros Parantoux. He asked me to accompany him to a booth where he wanted to share this glass with a patron—it was T. Keller—and he remembered the 1990 DRC night when I reminded him. I also reminded him that I had correctly predicted his ascension into greatness!
Charlie was a college classmate and local friend.
As a very tough disciplinarian, he taught staff about hospitality. Dinner at his place was always ethereal.
- USA, CA
In the 1970s and 80s we holidayed in the US. Heading south along the coast after staying in St Helena in Napa Valley we had dinner in a restaurant and ordered a California Cabernet Sauvignon from the list. When the waitress bought it to us it was very cold and crusted with ice. I said it was too cold. The waitress said all the wines were like that as the boss kept them all in the cold room, but to leave it to her. Five minutes she brought back the bottle, no longer crusted with ice and a reasonable temperature. She said she’d put the bottle in the dishwasher. The wine was fine.
- USA, VA
Decades later, after having children stopped our trips to the US I was sent by my new employer to Virginia as part of an international team. First night six of us foreigners met in a restaurant for dinner. I took responsibility for ordering the wine, because no one else would. I told them about Zinfandel, this great spicy red unique to California. But I didn’t recognise any winery names. The waiter brought a pink wine. “Oh no,” said I. “I wanted a Zinfandel.” He said it was, and showed me the label. Since I’d last been in the USA so called “white Zinfandels” had become the big thing. I managed to get the single red Zinfandel they had, but I’m not sure I retrieved my reputation as someone who knew about wine.
- England
I was in a up-market restaurant. The sommelier, on learning of my interest in wine, offered to show me the cellar. While there he told me of his biggest professional mistake. It was a night the restaurant was packed, they were short staffed and he was run off his feet. A businessman was dining with associates. The businessman ordered Ch Cheval Blanc. The sommeliers mistake was not to show the businessman the bottle before decanting. When the decanter was taken to the table the businessman said he’d ordered a white wine. He’d assumed the ‘Blanc’ part of the name meant the wine was white.
- Bordeaux
In 2022 we were on a Scenic River cruise of the Bordeaux region. At dinner on the first night were asked “red or white?” The white was Chardonnay, the red Gamay. I asked if I could have a Bordeaux wine and after a time the waiter brought another bottle. I could see as he walked the length of the dining room that it was not Bordeaux as it was a Burgundy shaped bottle. Finally I we got a Bordeaux red.
On the same cruise we visited St Emilion and on the way back the coach drove though the vineyards of Pomerol. Our guide proudly said that we were in the heart of Merlot country, and the world’s best Merlots came from the St Emilion region, so it was a surprise that the recommended red wine at dinner was a Merlot from the Languedoc. We chose a St Emilion from the wine list.
On the same trip the bar tender argued that the word ‘Cremant’ on a bottle meant it was Champagne.
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I worked on Charlie’s kitchen for two nights (each time as a result of my wife winning a charity auction giving me the privilege). It was great fun and Charlie was very patient with me. It taught me how little I knew about technique and building flavors.
One memory is when Charlie replaced the carpet in his dining room, but was upset that the carpet shed for the first week. His response was to have servers and staff wear double sided tape on the soles of their shoes and step in the fluff balls during service
On the way to a Ravinia concert one night, Charlie ran into the 7-11 on Green Bay Road to do whippets. The manager spotted him. He ran out with his face covered in whipped cream. Charlie dove into our car, and JT sped off. We nearly flipped the car on getaway.