from bankrupt to bougie

fine wine served in a van down by the river

How much do you pay for a bottle of wine with dinner?

There are the base bottles, the house wines at the top of the list.

These are what most people buy.

Then, there are the bottom of the list wines.

These rarely get sold - even at the best places.

That’s not entirely true.

They are sold most often when someone is using an expense account.

One day I served some really fancy people. They included an NHL general manager, a former premier with ill repute and the Canadian Ambassador to Iran during that thing that happened there in the late 70’s / early 80’s and had something to do with America.

These folks all could afford to order from the bottom of the list as they were backed by expense accounts to pay for everything.

There were ten people in total. We started opening wine from the bottom of the list.

A member of their party would take a taste and either agree to keep it or wave it away.

Those agreed to were drank. Those waved away were taken away. Each opened bottle was paid for.

In total, …