July 30, 2003
Bringing Wine Into a RestaurantLast week I went to visit an old neighbor and his wife down in Orange County. I picked up a bottle of great pinot noir-a Bonaccorsi from Santa Barbara County-at Hi Time Wine Cellars in Costa Mesa, a really great wine and spirits store in Orange County, by the way, and we took the bottle to a terrific little neighborhood restaurant in Orange called Genovese.
The waiter graciously opened the bottle of wine for us. I asked him if he would like to grab a glass and try it. He seemed genuinely flabbergasted and overwhelmed by the offer and told us that all the years he has worked as a waiter, no patron has ever offered to share the wine. As a result of the offer a side dish of delicious calamari showed up as an appetizer as did a dish of olives anti pasta.
This made me think of suggestions to share if you want to bring your own wine into a restaurant.
Remember, you are using the restaurant's glassware. And washing those glasses is on the restaurant's nickel. It's their water bill, not yours.
- First, if you are unsure of the restaurant's corkage policy, call and ask in advance. That way there will be no surprises. Few restaurants in the area here have particularly good wine lists, but the quality of the wine list doesn't really matter if the corkage fee is fair. (Restaurants I like that charge me a corkage fee usually charge anywhere from $3 to $5, and that is more than fair, and it keeps me coming back.)
- Never bring in a bottle that is on the wine list. That would be totally tacky. But here's one exception: Bring a bottle and buy the same wine off the list from a different vintage. It's a fun way to contrast and compare vintages of the same wine. This presupposes the next rule.
- Always offer a taste to the server, the sommelier (the wine waiter) and/or the owner. This gesture sometimes eliminates the corkage fee altogether. (It did not, by the way, at Genovese.) At any rate, making the offer is a gracious thing to do.
- Never bring in a jug wine, a box wine, or a wine with a screw top unless it is a $140 bottle of PlumpJack cabernet sauvignon from the Napa Valley.
- Whenever you bring a bottle of wine to a restaurant, it's always an important gesture to buy a bottle or two off of the wine list (depending on the number of people in your party, of course.)
- Always mentally add the price of the wine to the server's tip. I will frequently tip 20 percent at restaurants I know and really like, or if the service is particularly good. So on top of the tip at Genovese, I added $7 more to the tip for the bottle of Bonaccorsi we brought. ($34 was the bottle price I paid at Hi Time; 20 percent is $6.80. I rounded up to $7.)
Always remember this: The restaurant is doing you the favor by allowing you to bring in wine. And I believe as the patron, I have a duty to be gracious in return for the extension of this favor. It's only right! The restaurant could always say "no."
Times wine columnist, Bob Senn lives in the bucolic Los Alamos Valley and owns the Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium.
