How long before restaurant do you open your bottles?

Just wondering when everyone usually opens their bottles for a byob or corkage fee restaurant. I think I usually lean toward 30 minute or an hour before I leave.

Depends on the wine. Old Barolo? 12 hours. Most champagne? Pop and pour.

Double decant and then let it sit in bottle for 2-3 hrs is the norm. This is assuming time allows for that.
Champagne of course pnp

depends on the wine.

I’ve been shut down by restaurants in Napa for bringing in open wine so I don’t open it advance any more. Not worth the risk of being unable to drink a wine that’s worth the effort.

I am usually drinking wines that are no older than 2004 at this point in my wine “career” so I usually do an hour before, and decant at the restaurant if it’s still too tight.

What do you do then? Do you just bring wines don’t don’t need much air? Or do you have them decant?

I just open them there and deal with it. I’m not a fan of over-aerating wines, I don’t understand people who decant for hours without ever tasting. I also think many wines are at their most interesting immediately, but interesting doesn’t always equal tasty.

And having spent 2 years in cellars now, I’m just starting to develop a palate for barrel samples. Comparatively, bottled wine is much easier on the palate at any stage of aeration

Very interesting. I’ll keep that in mind. Something new every day.

What if you’re familiar with the wine and know it’s best with 2 - 4 hours in a decanter - or more? The 2007 Fontodi Flaccianello we had a few weeks ago was harsh on the pop n pour when I sampled it in the late morning, but an afternoon in the decanter turned it around.

I always open, clean and aerate (a red or white) that I’m taking to a BYOB, as I think the wine requires to show well at the table. With a BYOB, there is no reason to risk problems that are caused by handling/preparation. That’s one of the privileges of BYOB.

I’d treat the bottle no differently from if I were having it at my dinner table, though I pour it back in the cleaned bottle to transport.

Too many things can go wrong just bringing a bottle that needs cleaning and/or aeration to a restaurant without preparing it (including shaking up the sediment).

Is there any down side to giving the wine its best shot to show well, other than the effort?

The premise of that question is a bit off, I think, since you assume that your cleaning and aeration regime is indeed always going to be best for the wine. I know some people, including Stuart, think that wines always benefit by aeration. I couldn’t disagree more. There are plenty of young wines I have seen shut down due to too much air and older wines I have seen killed by it. So, if the question is really whether there is downside to pre-opening, then yes - there is. If the question is about risk in any form of bottle handling, then yes again. There’s no way to know for sure what will be best for the wine, so there will always be risk in how you prepare it. But if you have a view and opinions based on experience, then I agree your best form of risk control is to handle the bottles in the way you think best. I just don’t think there’s one best way for every bottle.

That’s a long-winded way of saying “do what you think is best” to have the wine show well. That’s my only point. But, do that.

And, I’d otherwise defer to Sarah, as she has seen it all. Who can argue with a sage! (Or who wants to bother!)

Are these youngish wines?

As Nolan said, some jurisdictions (and some restaurants within some jurisdictions) don’t allow you to bring an already-opened container. Also, whether a wine is going to be better or worse off with a specified period out of bottle before consuming is often a crap shoot, and if it is unpredictable, you might as well go with the alternative that poses fewer hassles with the restaurant.

As for Dennis’s question, if I really wanted to bring a wine that I knew for a fact needed to be decanted well in advance, I would call ahead and inquire. Unless it is a restaurant I am familiar with, I am going to be calling about their BYOB policy ahead of time anyway, so you might as well ask.

If you trust the restaurant, you could ask if they would decant the wine for the requisite time if you drop off the bottle in advance.

You’ve oversimplified what I wrote, and in your divisiveness, have left out something important. While it may have been long-winded (I do suffer from that affliction), what I wrote was not simply “do what you think is best,” though that was part of it. Your question above (possibly meant to be rhetorical) was “is there any downside” to preparing a bottle beforehand. The reason I chimed in at all was to the important point that yes, there can be downside to any approach. No form of preparation or lack thereof is guaranteed to give you best results. That is important to keep in mind as we all express our, often strong, opinions about how to prepare wines for service.

As for the second part, I have no idea where this sarcastic insult is coming from, or why you feel it is necessary. It seems like gratuitous nastiness.

It is illegal to travel with (from home to restaurant) and bring in an open bottle in my state. Therefore I take stuff that can show reasonably well on pop and pour. There is always the option to pour some into a glass on arrival and let it breathe while having a cocktail or just perusing the menu.

The stuff that needs careful handling gets opened at home.

Of course, there are downsides to every choice re: preparation…including no prep. That’s why I say “do what you think is best”, as if you’re having the bottle at your own table.

I don’t think it’s “nastiness”…or gratuitous…or necessary…just apt and amusing to me. I like to argue about important things…and avoid them on unimportant. So, I defer here to your formidable experience and sagacity instead.

I have heard (but never seen) of people not being able to be served their BYOB wine in a restaurant due to having been opened and then poured back into the bottle.
So If I BYOB I bring 1 or 2 bottles, depending on when I want to drink it during dinner. If early during, just a PnP. If later during dinner, something that needs some decant/air.
If it requires a long decanting, I won’t bring it.