The WinePost©
"Good wine is a necessity of life for me." Thomas Jefferson
In my group of friends, I'm the wine guy. If we're having dinner at their homes, they cook, I bring the wine. If we go out, I brown bag it, although my "brown bag" is a black six bottle wine bag.
"Bagging" your wine is beneficial for two reasons. First, I don't know the quality of every wine on the restaurants' wine lists. Some lists are books, many pages long. I have neither the time nor wine knowledge in order to consider a large number of wines. This is not a problem when you bring your own.
Secondly, it just makes sen$e. The markup on alcohol is extraordinary. I've seen a 100% to 250% markup on wine in restaurants here in South Carolina. It can be even higher elsewhere. So consider this, you and the significant other decide to go "someplace nice". Perhaps it's a special occasion and you're going to spend twice as much as usual on a bottle of wine. Maybe more than twice as much. So you order a fifty dollar bottle of wine. What you've just done is order a wine costing about $20-$25 at retail. I don't begrudge restaurants making a profit but I think that more people would spend more on wine if the markup was around 50% to 75%.
So if you follow the advice of Your Humble Wine Reviewer, bag it. But before you do, call ahead. Some restaurants (and states) don't allow it. It's a practice that is generally frowned upon by the industry and those that allow it usually charge a fee. When you call, don't ask if they allow you to bring your own wine. Ask them the amount of the corkage fee. That way, they will figure that you know they allow it and won't tell you that they don't allow it. Got it? As for the corkage fee, that will be covered next week.
Tonight's feature:
OBSIDIAN RIDGE Cabernet Sauvignon, Red Hills Lake County Obsidian Ridge Vineyard (2009)($30.00)
This is a very good California Cab at a decent price considering the quality of the wine. It will show its best with food, especially red meat. If you drink it now, decant for an hour. You can also lay it down for the next 5-7 years.
Enjoy!
art by artzcatz
