Money
Making money
You can't take it with you - a pricey drop of plonk
You can't take it with you - so if you've had a small windfall, why not blow some money on a meal out, writes Julian Champkin
Be like those six executives of Barclays Capital finance house - five city gents and one city lady - who had a small meal out together to celebrate their annual bonuses.
They went to a nice little restaurant called Petrus, in St James, off London's Piccadilly; it is one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants, so the food ought to be OK. And so should the drink.
They had, between the six of them, two beers. And some water, which can't have cost very much. That's not pushing the boat out too far. And some champagne while they were waiting for the starters, which brought the pre-food drinks bill to £102. And some wine with the meal. Not that much wine, but if you are celebrating it's silly to go for less than the best.
With their first course they wanted white. They had a bottle of Montrachet 1982, which is quite a good year. A superlative year, in fact say the experts. 'Peach, pear and floral aroma; overtones of wood, spice and vanilla.' These are some of the words you can use to describe a classic Montrachet. Which might be why their bottle cost them £1,400.
They might have liked it, or they might not have done; we shall never know. At any rate, with the main course they moved on to claret. The Petrus vineyard nestles on the right bank of the Gironde. 1945 Chateau Petrus is, say those who have tasted it, plummy or prune-like. It has a chocolatey tarry concentration. It is viscous, rich and with a velvety texture. At £11,600 a bottle, so it jolly well ought to be.
We know that they liked it. Why? Because they ordered another bottle. Having tasted the 1945 it would seem logical to compare it to, say, the 1946, another fine year. So they had a bottle of that as a chaser. It was not quite so fine, since the bottle of '46 cost them just £9,400. And - silly to stop just when you are getting the hang of it - after the '45 and the '46 they ordered a bottle of the '47, which was a better year even than '45, for another £12,300. And then it was time for the pudding.
With pud you have a pudding wine. There is of course only one choice that would not insult the Montrachet and the Petrus: Chateau d’Yquem. And nothing too fresh or immature: they chose the 1900 vintage, so their bottle of Chateau d'Yquem had been carefully maturing in a cool dark cellar somewhere while two world wars and the 20th century passed by overhead, doing nothing but concentrating and bringing to maturity that crystal clear mahogany colour, those deep flavours, those nutty, voluptuous caresses to the nose, waiting for just that moment to arrive when it would bring sweet nectar to the jaded palates of those worthy bankers, reward them for their year of hard work banking money, bring them just a little taste of heaven here on earth. It would be insulting to change anything less than a proper price for such a joy. £9,200 is what that bottle cost.
Which, if you add it up, comes to a drinks bill of £44,000 for the evening between the six of them. Or, to be exact, £44,002. A world record, says the Guinness Book of the same.
And the food? Oh, they economised on the food. In fact they spent nothing at all on it. Since they had paid so much for the wine, Mr Ramsay thought he might as well throw the eats in for free, in the same way that lesser restaurants sometimes don't charge for the peanuts.
There was a slight downside. The thing got into the papers, and the bank didn't welcome the publicity. Five out of the six of them were sacked.
And the moral? Next time a Barclay's banker says 'Have a drink on me' it might well be worth while to say 'Yes.'
