Corked!
If the members of Relais & Chateaux can’t get a good bottle of French wine, who can?
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The worldwide association of elite hotels and restaurants held its 33rd International Congress in Washington last week, and one of the highlights was a lavish dinner at Union Station, complete with entertainment by disco diva Gloria Gaynor.
The wine selected? Magnums (double bottles) of Bordeaux’s legendary Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, vintage 1990. The cost? Between $700 and $1,000 a bottle, retail, depending on where you shop.
But all was not well under the cork. Legendary D.C. food critic Phyllis Richman told us her table sent back two bottles, which had gone bad, and they saw several other tables returning bottles as well.
But all was not lost. We hear the crowd contented itself with Opus One, the California label that’s a joint venture of Rothschild and Mondavi, and three different Moet & Chandon champagnes. “So nobody went thirsty,” Richman said.
A Relais & Chateaux spokeswoman emphasized that the “Opus One was in addition to the other, not a substitution.
