A law on something so specific can’t be unclear. The law either says this, or is silent on the issue. My guess is that those who have tried to investigate it couldn’t find anything in the law, but were scared to definitively state that there is nothing. (It is rather impossible to prove that something DOESN’T exist, with 100% certainty…That is why, at least in the realm of science (as opposed to, say, astrology, religion, conspiracy theory, etc), the burden of proof lies with those asserting a thing’s existence.
agree. Utah requires servers to open bottles; California doesn’t.
Or that there would actually be a state officer in the restaurant conducting a sting operation and ready to write tickets/impose fines.
Most restaurants in LA that allow BYOB don’t care whether you open the bottle yourself at the table. If I’m with a larger group of people, we’ll usually tell the waiter at the
outset that we’ll handle all the opening/pouring so that they don’t have to do it. MOST of the time, they’re fine with it.
In terms of opening at home and bringing it, if it’s an important enough bottle then it’s worth calling the restaurant in advance to make sure it’s not an issue. Regardless of what the
law is, the restaurant can refuse to permit you to bring in a bottle that’s already been opened (just like they can refuse to permit BYOB altogether). Thus, I would suggest calling and
asking for the manager. Explain that you have a bottle of wine that you want to open and decant at home and you want to know if that’s OK. Usually, the answer is that it’s fine.
In terms of transporting an open bottle, at least here it’s permissible if it’s not inside the passenger compartment. So I put it in my bag in the trunk, with a cork stuck back in it. I do
the same if I’m taking home a bottle that wasn’t completely consumed at the restaurant…
Bruce
FWIW, here are two old threads on the subject:
Any somm at a very high end restaurant who has a problem with removing (way) over 50% of corks from wines from the '90’s should be working at a different restaurant.
In almost all casual restaurants, the staff is thrilled when I tell them I will open up the older bottle(s) I brought.
Looks like my guess was about right…no one found anything, but no one could definitively say nothing exists…EXCEPT this sounds like as close to a real answer as one could get: “So I called the California Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) to get the real scoop on this. The Senior Agent I spoke to said in all his years he had never heard of such a law, regarding taking a previously opened bottle of wine into a properly licensed establishment. He said it may be the locations policy, but not illegal to his knowledge.”
Hah, great story! I have to remember that line.
And thanks everyone for the ongoing discussion. Happily I have a Durand already, so now I have a plan.
BTW I wouldn’t open a bottle at home (unless bringing to a group event with many bottles) and bring along. I’ve had a number of restaurants reject pre-opened bottles, so don’t want that hassle.
Bring a Durand and open it yourself, to the derision of the waitstaff, until they have a problem cork at another table and come and ask you to borrow the Durand, at which point you tell them it will take too long to teach them how to use it so you walk over to the other table and just open the problem bottle yourself. Been there, done that.
Although I have not had a lot of problems with Cali Cabs.
Can’t say enough good things about the Durand, best money ever spent any wine accessories.
For anything more than 15 years, I usually open with the Durand at home and recork it or just bring the Durand to the restaurant. In fact I often fly with the Durand in my luggage bag.
- Open it yourself and bring to the restaurant
or
- Open it at the restaurant yourself - if the staff intervenes, politely tell them that you’d like to open your own bottles.
For as long as it took to get Sunday sales in MN we have great laws in regards to paying corkage and brining in wine. I always prep the wine prior and often times pull out the cork at the restaurant so no need for a server to do anything. I know each state varies but our corkage fees are from free to $30 at the high end restaurants which is something I gladly pay.
It isn’t illegal in CA to open your own wine and it isn’t illegal to take home a partial bottle that you haven’t finished. Just don’t let it be a question in the first place - don’t let them touch the bottle. When you put it on the table, just say you’ll open it AND pour it yourself. Otherwise, they’ll turn it upside down to look at it, shake it up nicely, pour glasses to the brim or otherwise do something dumb. Besides, you want to control your pours whereas they will be trying to empty the bottle to sell you a new one.
Seems like all of a sudden today half the threads on the board are about the Durand.
Beats rapists, church pedophiles, pension funds, bird migration, dead celebrities… No offense intended to those who have started such threads.
We actually had a restaurant refuse to serve the bottle that had been opened/decanted/recorked. I’m sure they were wrong on whatever the relevant laws are, but you can’t really litigate this when you’re with a with pair of couples out for dinner. So we just stuck the bottle under the table, and fortunately used our back up bottle. And because we were peeved about the whole thing…just switched out the allowed bottle for the disallowed one later on in the night, when the restaurant was so crowded that it would not be noticed.
I actually quite liked that restaurant, but service was indeed chaotic/inconsistent even though we were regulars. They would regularly lose our prime time reservations, but at least they could look up our dining history (via phone number) and surmise that we weren’t trying to scam them out of a Friday night 7pm 4 top. (normal waiting times with no rezzys were hour plus there)
Beats rapists, church pedophiles, pension funds, bird migration, dead celebrities
![[rofl.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/a/a7452fcd8e675af869f8da01174474a545b03944.gif "rofl"){kind=small}
Although I must say, I really do like the bird migration thread. And the fact that it’s still going.
This is the concise and correct answer.
Whatever the laws or whatever someone may think the laws are, it will work out fine at least 999 times out of 1,000 (I would have said 1,000 out of 1,000 were it not for Arv’s post above).
I always take my own corkscrew and open the bottle myself. I do not let them offer to open it, they say “let me go get some glasses” and I get to work.
The few times I have let a server do it they did a fine job except once, which was a 2000 Pegau, and I probably would have boogered it myself since I did not have my Ah-So with me.
And just to reiterate - call ahead. Virtually every good restaurant has a reservation system where they can note in advance a lot of stuff about incoming guests, including what you expect/want ftom wine service. Showing up and confirming what you want is a lot easier for EVERYONE instead of asking on the fly.