These days, anyone who goes out to eat — and certainly anyone who orders wine at a restaurant — is looking for value. Here are 10 tips that will help you find value in wine at restaurants.
1. Skip wine by the glass. Restaurateurs like to make enough on a single glass to pay for a whole bottle, which is great for them but not so great for you. And it wouldn’t be so bad except that so many wines by the glass are poured from bottles that have been open for too long and mistreated after opening. (…)
3. Bypass the second-cheapest wine on the list. Restaurateurs know that diners don’t want to appear cheap by ordering the least expensive wine on the list, so they’ll hose you for ordering the second-cheapest. The least expensive is actually a pretty good deal at many places. (…)
6. Never order Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio.
{ Wall Street Journal | Continue reading }
Okay, things have improved in New York State. Since September 9, 2004, you can take home a partially consumed bottle of wine from a restaurant.
A few days ago we went to the Village Vanguard, a jazz club in Manhattan. We ordered a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, drank half of it and wanted to take the rest home. The waitress said “no, that is illegal.” Didn’t she know that the law has changed? But she insisted, it is illegal, period. Back at home, I looked up the infamous ABC law. And sure enough, the waitress was right. You can take home a partially consumed bottle of wine only if each of these conditions are met:
(1) Restaurant License Required
A partially consumed bottle of wine may be removed only from an establishment which has received from the New York State Liquor Authority a restaurant wine license or a restaurant liquor license. (…)
(2) Full course meal required
A partially consumed bottle of wine may be removed from a licensed restaurant establishment only if the bottle of wine was actually purchased in connection with a full course meal, and only if a portion of the wine contained in the bottle was actually consumed with the meal. (…)
(5) Only one partially consumed bottle of wine may be removed from the restaurant
The purchaser of the full course meal and the wine may remove only one partially consumed bottle of wine.
(…)
Clearly, the Village Vanguard is not a restaurant. That alone makes it illegal to take your wine back home.
{ Wine Economics | Continue reading }