Woman accidentally spends £15,000 on wine on first date

A woman allegedly spent £15,000 on three bottles of wine on a first date at The Shard in London after mistakenly thinking they cost £50 not £5,000 each.

I better get a second date out of this…

Journalist Sam White shared the story on Twitter last week of the alleged wine blunder, which is said to have happened to his friend’s colleague.

White reports that the woman misread the menu at one of The Shard’s four restaurants, believing the £5,000 wine she ordered cost £50 a bottle. Over the course of the evening she went on to order two more bottles, racking up a bill of £15,000.

Unable to pay it up front, according to White’s Tweet, the woman in question now has a direct debit set up with The Shard that will take her 10 years to pay off.

The most expensive wine at The Shard is Petrus 1998, which costs £5,200 a bottle

The story was met with a mixture of horror and cynicism on Twitter, with many believing it to be an urban myth.

A number of users backed White’s story up, saying that they know the woman personally and that the story was true.

However, it looks likely to be a hoax, as Real Estate Management UK Ltd, the asset management that runs The Shard, confirmed to Grazia that no such blunder had taken place at any of the restaurants in the London landmark.

“We have spoken to the restaurant and bar operators within The Shard all of whom have confirmed this alleged incident did not happen on their premises,” the company said in a statement.

Having a quick browse of the wine lists of the quartet of restaurants within the shard – Aqua Shard, Oblix, Ting and Hutong – the only venue where the gaffe could have happened is at Ting, where a bottle of Petrus 1998 costs £5,200.