There were frantic scenes of violence and looting yesterday morning after Waitrose ran out of the 2009 vintage of the Chateau Lafite de Rothschild.
Customers were queuing around the corner from 6am after Waitrose announced that they would be selling bottles of the fruity vintage red at the knock down price of £6,500 a bottle.
“It was carnage.” Waitrose Manager Ann Athema told the Rochdale Herald “I haven’t seen anything like this since Lidl ran an offer on Krug Clos d’Ambonnay champagne.”
“The trouble with dropping your prices £500 on vintages like this is that you really bring in the riff raff. We’ll be cleaning up aisle nine for weeks.”
“When customers who had been queuing from 6am found out we were about to run out of the 2009 Lafite they stormed the wine section and it was bedlam in here.”
“If we hadn’t been stocked up on Domaine de la Romanee-Conti 1990 I don’t think we would have been able to calm the crowds down. That’s a passable substitute, provided you aren’t serving it with lamb of course.”
Police were called to the disturbance and hundreds of arrests were made. It’s understood that dozens of currency traders from Rochdale’s financial district had set up barricades at the car park entrance to prevent emergency services from reaching the scene.
Several police cars had windows broken when the rioters pelted police with bottles of less popular vintages such as the Chateau Margaux 2009 and the Egon Muller Scharzhofberger Riesling, an often overlooked dessert wine that goes very well with fruit based dishes.
It’s understood that Booth’s in Middleton are still stocked up with Chateau Lafite but are warning customers that they only have the 1870, 1953 and the 1986 vintages on offer.
