Negotiating the minefield of paying corkage

There is nothing more likely to anger diners than restaurants charging an excessive corkage fee for the special wine they have brought with them.

Equally, however, restaurateurs can be incensed by patrons trying to avoid buying a wine from their carefully curated list.

Corkage, for those in the dark, is a charge made by a restaurant or hotel for serving wine that has been brought in by a customer, often from their own cellar. 

These wines are often older and from a vintage that marks a special occasion.

The restaurant charges a fee for opening and serving these wines, covering their costs from staff time, the possible use of a decanter, use of glassware, breakages and washing and drying the glasses.

And also, of course, to make up for the fact that they do not sell a wine from their own list.

This is not an issue for unlicensed or BYO restaurants, who often impose just a minimal corkage charge.

But licensed restaurants rely on profits from wine sales to subside their food sales.

At a hole in the wall cafe, $10 a bottle might be seen as a reasonable corkage fee. At a more upmarket restaurant I would consider $20 to $50 a bottle fair.

But a restaurant in London has hit the headlines by imposing massive mandatory corkage charges.

Dorian, in the chic Notting Hill region, is charging £100 (just a shade under $200 Aus) for diners to bring their own bottle of wine.

It has also an extra stipulation that customers must spend at least £50 on top of that on wine from the list.

The cheapest bottle on the Dorian wine list is £50 - so the absolute minimum cost would be £150..

Dorian says it could not make enough money to survive on food alone.

The average corkage fee in the UK is £12 to £15 per bottle of still wine opened on-site, which seems fair enough.

I'd be choosing somewhere other than Dorian to dine, but there are a few key rules to follow.

First, let a licensed restaurant know in advance that you want/plan to BYO one or more bottles. And confirm that is acceptable. 

Then, make sure you know what corkage charges will be before booking your table. 

Is there a per-table corkage fee, or a per bottle fee? Is there an extra charge of magnums and other large-format bottles?

And make sure you get all the charges in writing, so there are no debates when you get the bill.

It is also considered extremely poor form to bring a cheap "supermarket" wine to a fine dining establishment - and you will probably not be allowed to BYO a wine that is on the restaurant's own list. Keep it classy.  

The pitfalls of BYO: always ask first

BYO has been popular with Australian diners for decades. While it may be an alien concept in many other countries, in Australia many eateries offer the option.

BYO stands for “bring your own”, and it means that you can bring your own wine, usually, to a restaurant, whether that business is licensed to sell alcohol or not.

In the 1970s, many small restaurants were able to open without having to pay thousands of dollars for a liquor license. Today, many restaurants do hold a liquor license but still offer diners the choice between BYO and purchasing from the house wine list.

Some offer this option for free, others impose a charge still known as "corkage", even though over 90% of wines in Australia are sold under screw caps.

But corkage can be a source of controversy.

A corkage charge covers the cost of the restaurant's glasses, ice bucket and the assistance of the waiting staff. 

BYO is particularly popular with members of the wine industry, who get to bring expensive wines to dinner without paying a restaurant list mark-up, and with collectors, who can bring older wines from their cellar that would be unlikely to feature on wine lists.

The problem is that restaurants set their own corkage rates and there are no industry guidelines. It may vary from a charge per person, or per bottle. Anything from a nominal $1.50 per person to as high as $50 per bottle in a top-end establishment.

But if you don't check first there can be unpleasant surprise when the bill arrives, as Hunter Valley wine industry personality Leigh Dryden posted on LinkedIn this week.

Dryden works for Hunter wine producers Hart & Hunter, so is familiar with the industry norms.

"We all love a good BYO and we don't mind paying a fair corkage fee especially if we have some quality wine in our cellars," Dryden said.

"A mate of mine and his wife went to a local restaurant here in Newcastle over the weekend, its a reasonable standard, so-so wine list but it had BYO but here is the kicker. "At the time of booking he discussed about bringing his own wine, no worries from the venue, no mention of the corkage fee, upon arrival no mention by the wait staff concerning the corkage fee, paying the bill once again no mention about the corkage fee - the assumption was they may not have one, or choose not to enforce it.

"Sadly this was not the case , after arriving home my mate thought the bill was a little heavy given they had taken their own wine and had not had a big lash out the bill was very overweight.

"On the bill was a fee for $38, so next day he rang the owner of the venue and he was told the fee was for corkage, wooooo this is pretty hot given the average fee in Sydney is around $6 per person.

"After much discussion it was admitted that there had been a mistake and [the restaurant] would reduce the fee to $25."

So a lesson there. Always ask first.

"The fact that no one had made mention what the fee was at any stage is very unprofessional," Dryden says.

"The moral of the story: people are prepared to pay for fair value, they are not prepared to be ripped off, and, more importantly, not suitably communicated to concerning the corkage fee practices."

Image: Yoann Jezequel, Scop.io