Earlier this month, your Two Wine Nuts had a special occasion to celebrate so we pulled out a “special occasion” bottle of 1992 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley and headed to a favorite restaurant.Yes, you are allowed to bring your own wine to a restaurant! But doing so can often start a ritual with the wait staff that we have only learned through experience.
First, be aware that you will likely pay what is called a “Corkage Fee.” This is usually $10-$15 and it supposedly covers the service cost of the waiter opening and pouring your wine, the use of the wine glasses, and the fact that you aren’t buying any of the wine in the restaurant’s cellar. So suddenly your “free bottle” isn’t really free anymore. Unless you share.
Some wait staff is more subtle than others, but all that we have encountered when bringing our own bottle have made it clear that they would love to try a sip of our wine. The first time this happened, one of your Wine Nuts was rather offended. Eventually the waitress’s hints got embarrassing and we finally told her to get a glass just so that we could get back to enjoying our meal. We shared just a sip’s worth and tipped accordingly.
With some experience, though, we have come to expect that we will be sharing at least an ounce or so of our wine with our wait staff. The negotiation usually starts with us declining a wine list since we have brought our own bottle. This is followed by a discussion about what we have brought. At some point between this and when the wine is being poured, the waiter or waitress will start showing enthusiasm and curiosity about the wine, asking questions, making hypothetical comparisons to other known wines, etc. At this point we offer that if they would like to get a glass, we would be happy to let them sample it.
This is where you can decide whether or not you want to pay the corkage fee. A small pour (one ounce or so) and you will likely still see that extra $10-$15 added to your bill. A bigger pour – one that allows at least two full sips or perhaps a little sharing with others in the kitchen – could very well lead to the corkage fee being waived. Of course, this is entirely dependent on the wait staff, the restaurant, the “specialness” of the wine, and the camaraderie you have managed to establish with the wait staff over the course of the meal.
So with all that, how was our special occasion Cabernet? Pretty darn great!
Silver Oak is known for one thing and one thing only: Cabernet Sauvignon. They have two wineries in California – one in the Napa Valley and one a little farther north in Alexander Valley. The wine is known as big and well-crafted and is priced accordingly. Although we bought the 1992 Napa Valley Cab probably 10 years ago for about $50, it is now selling online for about $130ish. So yes, our corkage fee was waived.
And was it worth $130?? Probably not. But it was very, very good. Silver Oak builds its wines to age and this one seemed to have aged rather nicely. Honestly, though, we suspect we may have waited a year or two too long to open it and we didn’t give the wine nearly enough time to breathe when we finally did.
The wine definitely changed over the hour and a half or so that we ate dinner. It got fruiter and more full. But unlike a younger Cabernet Sauvignon, this 16 year old Cab was extraordinarily smooth from the very first sip, lacking the tannins that make your mouth pucker. It was less fruity and more subtle than a typical California-style Cabernet, making it taste and feel more like a French version. Overall, it was a great wine for the price we originally paid for it. And our next “special occasion” wine will probably be decanted.
