Wine Corkage Fee's

The History of Corkage Corkage Fee $30

Originally "corkage" was intended for that unusual rare collector's bottle that was not only "special" but also an equivalent was not available on the restaurant's wine list.  As of late, the understanding has taken a change and guests at times bring, while they might definitely are of good quality, nonetheless a very similar wine that is already available on the restaurant's wine list.  While we can only guess about the intent, we feel that is not truly fair to the restaurant and ultimately the restaurant will only survive by raising its prices.  A final thought, would you bring your own food to a restaurant? 

Printed at the bottom of the menu at Louie's By the Bay, Newport Beach, California

All fair comments to be sure.  Restaurants live on a thin margin and if everyone brings their own food and wine what's the point.  In order to have any wine program at all the restaurants have to have temperature-controlled rooms or cellars to store the wine, carry a fairly high inventory, rotate the inventory, and then maintain the wine room and periodically have to repair or replace the cooling systems all at a high cost.  I get it.

I also get that because of the above I can expect to pay a premium price to drink the restaurant's wine.  But not at 700% normal retail.  I actually have been to places where the restaurant's price was 700% over retail which is highway robbery.  Years ago I had dinner at the Blue Door in Miami Beach where wines were marked up on average 1.5 times retail and never over 2X.  For years and years, the industry-standard has been 2X which for most wine is OK.  When I spoke to the manager at the Blue Door he told me they priced their wines lower because they wanted customers to have wine with their food and yes they still made a little money because they purchased the wine wholesale, though in Florida at least the wholesale price is not that much lower than retail.  I had a similar discussion with the wine manager at La Bernadine in NYC last October where their wine prices were ridiculous.  He told me they priced their wines to match Hong Kong auction prices.  I advised him that was crazy.  Just because some rich Chinese person pays $500,000 for a bottle of wine to show off to his friends doesn't mean that is a reasonable price to sell wine at the restaurant.  I told him if that is all you care about pack up the wine and ship it to Hong Kong.  

Too many places today have gone away from the Blue Door's example and pursued the La Bernadine model which I blame on Harvard Business Schools recent Business model which is charge whatever the market will bear as opposed to the old great American Business Model, the Henry Ford Model, provide the best product at the lowest price.  I agree with Louis's in that you should take a special bottle of wine and it should be something they don't have and it should not be a $10 or $20 bottle.  We took a Le Montrachet for dinner, the top white wine in the world and no it was not on the menu or anything even close.  Sometimes I will take a special bottle and halfway through the dinner if appropriate I will purchase a bottle of the restaurant's wine list.  Many times if you do this they will waive the corkage fee.

One advantage of having spent your life learning about wine is that there is nowhere I can go and not find a reasonably priced good wine on anyone's wine list.  At Louis's, there were many great value Pinot Noirs.  There may only be one or two but there has always been at least one.  But if restaurants want me to come and drink mostly their wine then they need to bring their prices down to reasonable levels.  I consider 3X or higher robbery.  They also need to stock a sufficient number of quality wines and not just the wines that the distributors pump and dump on them.  On some occasions, I have been places where the wine list is embarrassing.  We had dinner at a swanky place in Lake Tahoe years ago and no kidding the wine list had Boone's Farm and Ripple on the list.  I was appalled and complained to the server.  He informed me we don't put good wines on the list because no one orders them.  Maybe because the prices are ridiculous I said.  He then asks me well we do keep some better bottles in the back for our better customers, what would you like?  I said "Kistler Chardonnay" and damned if he didn't come out with a "Kistler Chardonnay".  I say again to restaurants if you want us to order off your list start pricing your wines at a reasonable level.