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Couple at NYC eatery served $2,000 Bordeaux in error after ordering cheap wine

Money can’t buy taste.

A young couple who ordered an $18 bottle of wine at a popular Soho brasserie instead got served a $2,000 bottle meant for a table of businessmen — who didn’t even notice that they ended up drinking the cheap stuff, the restaurant’s owner said.

Managers at Balthazar had poured the pricy 1989 Chateau Mouton Rothschild Bordeaux and the budget pinot noir — the restaurant’s cheapest wine — into identical decanters, the eatery’s owner, Keith McNally, recounted on Instagram this week.

It was not clear low long ago the mix-up happened, although it was at a time when fancy Manhattan eateries still sold $18 wine bottles.

The two wines got switched, and the managers accidentally delivered them to the wrong tables.

Still, the Wall Streeter who had ordered the Bordeaux for himself and three friends tasted the cheap pinot and — fancying himself a connoisseur — promptly praised its “purity,” McNally wrote in his post, reported by Decanter, a wine review and news site.

Likewise, the lovebirds didn’t notice they had been served the highbrow wine, the most expensive bottle at the restaurant.

“They jokingly pretended to be drinking an expensive wine” while poking fun of themselves for ordering the cheap stuff, McNally recalled.

When they learned of the switcheroo, they were thrilled.

“The young couple were ecstatic by the restaurant’s mistake, and told me it was like the bank making an error in their favor,” McNally wrote.

Ultimately, neither party had sour grapes, according McNally — who said he chose to eat the cost of the mistake.

“The trouble was, it was me who was down $2,000,” wrote the restaurateur, who also owns the Minetta Tavern and Pastis among other popular city restaurants.

Grown on a 205-acre vineyard in the southwestern French village of Pauillac, Mouton Rothschild 1989 is considered one of the world’s greatest wines.

Flasche Rotwein der Marke Chateau Mouton Rothschild
Flasche Rotwein der Marke Chateau Mouton Rothschildullstein bild via Getty Images

It has notes of “luscious black currants” with “powerful ripe tannins” and an “extremely long finish,” according to Wine.com.

Critics have also described the wine as having “eucalyptus on the nose” with “vanilla bean and ripe plum flavors.” Two years ago, it was rated 97 out of 100 points by a critic on Decanter.

The Balthazar blunder was not the first time a top restaurant has screwed up a pricy wine order.

Last year, a customer at a Hawksmoor steakhouse in Manchester, England, was accidentally served a $5,800 bottle of Pomerol’s Chateau Le Pin 2001 after ordering a $340 bottle of Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 2001, according to Decanter.

Pinot noir now costs $88 at Balthazar, and the Spring Street eatery’s cheapest half-bottle is $40. It now sells a bottle of Roger Extra Cuvée de Réserve Champagne for $2,000.

Also on the menu: a bottle of Bud Light for $11.