Undercover in the name of wine

A letter arrived recently in Fay Maschler's postbag. It was, for some reason, anonymous and bore no address. It referred to a celebration meal at Pomegranates , a heroic restaurant relic of the Seventies, sited next to Dolphin Square.

The evening described had gone well enough, with one exception - the wine. Since it had been a special meal, Fay's correspondent had decided to indulge in a more expensive (£59) bottle. Decanting was suggested. The diner acquiesced - but the wine proved so underwhelming that she or he became suspicious that an inferior bottle had been substituted for the one ordered. (Once in a decanter, of course, a cheap wine looks much the same as an expensive wine.)

"I suggest," wrote the correspondent, "you send in an undercover reporter who knows his or her wine. I swear they pulled a fast one on me and nobody else that I could see had a decanter, so it was not a case of a mix-up." Fay handed the letter to me to investigate.

All I could do was to attempt to duplicate the circumstances of the evening. Ave Maria was playing as we stepped into this basement timewarp, where the lights are always louchely low and kilograms of fabric cover every available surface. Surroundings this demode have the effect of making everyone, no matter how jovial, look singular or sinister; it felt a bit like stepping into a David Lynch movie. No doubt the other diners recall us with fascinated horror. (Those spectacles! That weird smile!) I expected the waiting staff to be asthmatic and tetchy old Frenchmen with napkins over their forearms; in fact, service was provided by an Asian trio who acted with almost alarming alacrity. We ordered our food - and our wine.

My plan, as I surveyed the wine list (ample if conservative choice; reasonable prices), was to select a mid-priced bottle which was still relatively young yet of good quality - the kind of wine that I knew would be improved and opened up by the fresh air which the decanting process brings. I went for the '94 Grand Puy Ducasse. A modest Pauillac classed growth, in other words, from a goodish but shy vintage (dense and measured, rather than hot, fat and fruity). At £45 plus £5.63 service, it seemed attractive value.

The waiter knew it immediately, but passed no further comment. He swept two further glasses off an adjacent table, and in under a minute it was open, on our table, and undecanted. I sampled it before asking for it to be decanted. When the wine returned, it was the same. All the substitutes had remained on the bench. (I was, by the way, unrecognized.)

Conclusion? Here's what Fay's correspondent had written. "Well all I can say is that if that was a £59 bottle of wine I will eat my fat hat. It was nice and very pleasant but more in the £20 range." I was impressed by this, because it implies that the writer is able to price wines with precision.

Nothing, in truth, is more difficult. If you give a plain glass of wine to those considered experts and ask them to name both its origin and price, I guarantee that a higher proportion will deduce the origin correctly than name the right price. Wines are priced according to a number of what we might call "non-taste" factors - including historic reputation, fashion, and producer aspiration. There are thousands of £59 restaurant bottles all over London which may indeed taste "more in the £20 range".

It would, moreover, be pointless for any restaurant to attempt to act fraudulently in this respect. After all, they have already made an agreeable profit on selling any good bottle of wine, and the risk of leaving a promising customer dissatisfied, with its possible implications for future trade, easily outweighs the £20 or £30 which might be grossed by a villainous substitution.

For the record, I called owner Patrick Gwynn-Jones after my visit to discuss the letter. "We've never switched a bloody bottle in my life," was his hurt comment. "I wouldn't dream of such a thing."