Are you pulling our cork?

HAWKSMOOR restaurant in Manchester scored a marketing triumph on social media this week.

‘To the customer who accidentally got given a bottle of Chateau Le Pin Pomerol 2001, which is £4,500 on our menu, last night — hope you enjoyed your evening! To the member of staff who accidentally gave it away, chin up! One- off mistakes happen and we love you anyway,’ they tweeted, rather glutinously.

Did this really happen? Restaurants with £4,000-plus bottles of wine will usually keep them under lock and key, away from dopey servers and the racks of day-to- day gluggers. And in the unlikely event of a waiter giving away the single most expensive bottle on the wine list, it’s hard to imagine a chain restaurant like Hawksmoor being so affable and magnanimous in such a tough trading climate and in an industry obsessed with margins.

A restaurant that charges £4.75 for chips is hardly going to laugh at losing a four-figure profit, is it?

At least now we know they serve ridiculously expensive wines here — if anyone is daft enough to buy them. Cheers!