I think there are only very, very few who criticize corkage on this board, who just seem to be very vocal about it!
I don’t feel weird when I drink all of your low priced wine in Copenhagen 
I am certainly not complaining about the price point at most places here 
.
We rarely bring our own bottles though, but sometimes a restaurant we want to visit just don’t have much wine we are interested in. The corkage varies a lot here when it is even allowed.
I read and participated in the other thread, and don’t think it at all arrives at the sort of firm conclusions that Yacoov suggests it does. People’s opinions there were varied, just as they are here.
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Can you or @ybarselah at least tell me what the title of the thread was? I’m not sure which corkage thread you guys are talking about. There’s a bunch of them.
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Most people should just be glad to have the option of BYO in the first place. In Boston, we don’t have it at any price!
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I certainly am. We’re going out to dinner tonight. After scouring local wine lists at each of the places we were considering, I was completely uninspired. There is very little I consider interesting, and of that group. everything is too young, and way overpriced. Corkage is $20 at one place, $25 at the other, and either may waive corkage if we buy cocktails or another bottle. I really tried to find something interesting at a markup I could live with, with no success.
True, but it’s such a simplistic cliche.
Learn to cook.
We understand you, that’s why you’re here.
To piggyback on this, some restaurants like to use btg wines which are readily available in the wholesale channel.
A lesser selling vintage could be in the warehouse a year or more, while a more in demand vintage would sell out more quickly.
If a buyer forecasted needed say 10 cases a month she might not have the physical space or capital to buy 120 cases at a time to hold a year’s supply.
Not that Nathan is seeking plaudits or attention for his restaurant, but I can easily say it was a wonderful experience when I went last may and I throughly enjoyed the wine I snagged off his list.
Just wanted to add my own 2c on this as a place Berserkers can and should seek out when heading to the triangle (along with shopping at Wine Solutions).
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This one is easy. Wholesalers hold the inventory and deliver as needed. They want the business, so they do what is necessary.
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That’s a good point!
Would they do this for say 2016 Produttori Normale?
I suppose the answer you will give is yes, if it’s an important enough account.
If it was a Marea or Carbone, sure, but probably not for a corner Italian bistro.
What helps us is we don’t do grocery store wines, nor labels they can get most anywhere else. The chef changes the menu every night, and I am constantly changing the wine menu with new and exciting wines. Only a few very popular allocated wines stay on the list such as Shafer HSS.
What this rotation does is to not only provide our customers with new wine experiences, but more importantly take maximum advantage of all the “on premises” deals we are offered. I’m regularly offering very good wines on the wine list at below retail prices. Drives the liquor stores and some of the other restaurants nuts, but it builds great customer relationships. These deals come and go regularly. That normally wholesale priced wine at $49 is offered to me at $21. I jump on it, price it at $50 and laugh all the way to the bank. Other places are sitting on the inventory at the $100 price wanting to keep all the spread. When it’s gone , it’s gone. Don’t fall in love with any wine.
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In that case, I would go back to my original point.
Most restaurants are not Marea.
So they have to take what wholesalers give them.
If they’re not able to buy a large quantity of stock to hold on hand, then they have to rely on the stock that’s available from the wholesaler.
If you grant it’s true that the most desirable wines move from the wholesalers books quickly, then at any one average point in time line the wine available to an average restaurant from a wholesaler is not a wine that’s most highly desired, but an average wine.
So maybe more 2014 than 2015 or 16 Piedmont, or back in the day, more 2007, 2008, or 2011 Burgundy.
Yeah, this is awesome.
Great post, thanks for sharing these real world experiences Thatcher. But this point in particular resonated with me. Restaurant experience is so much about human interaction, and yet most restaurants simply don’t have the time, budget, culture, salary availability, etc. to have someone around who can engage with the customers deeply about any aspect of the meal at all - food, menu, wine, the restaurant’s history, point of view.
In a low priced restaurant maybe none of those things matter, but as prices go up there is an experience value that has real meaning, and is extremely hard to execute. Connect with me as a customer and I will come back over and over. And I don’t just mean about the food, of course.
I love having conversations about wine with restaurant staff. But at the restaurants I go to, that is nearly always the manager/owner, not a somm. Post Covid, the Somms have disappeared.
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