A call for BYO

I have a cellar of nicely ageing premium shiraz (mainly Barossa and McLaren Vale), excellent riesling (Clare and Victoria), a good range of sparkling reds (unsurprisingly, SA), and some fine tokays (Rutherglen). Over 40 years, this is where my tastes have slowly (but not exclusively) settled. I enjoy my wines with friends over a meal at nice restaurants, which limits us to those eateries sensible enough to allow BYO, and I’m quite happy to pay $20 corkage per bottle. Adelaide is blessed with a good number of such restaurants, so I’m reasonably content on that front. I recently went to a venue (two courses $90; excellent food, but for Adelaide rather pricey) that allowed one BYO bottle per table at $30 corkage. As we were a table of eight, that one bottle didn’t go far, but so be it. The wine list gave me a choice of what I can only describe as less-expensive quaffers, perhaps $20 to $25, but in the $70 to $80 range on the list. Even a quaffer at five years is significantly better than a quaffer at two, but sadly most were current releases. I did have the option of European wines at three figures, and a small range of ‘cellar holdings’ of 2015 and 2016 releases, again at three figures. For a restaurant so obviously proud of its food, it was disappointing they steered us away from what could have been a truly outstanding experience with their food and our wine. What’s more, that combination would have encouraged us to return, rather than giving us an expensive but poor wine experience we are unlikely to repeat. Those of us who enjoy our wine should do all we can to encourage

BYO at a reasonable corkage, and $30 a bottle for my Sunday lunch would have been fine. I think restaurants that don’t allow BYO are short-sighted; I’d rather spend my money on their food on several occasions rather than an expensive food and wine package just once.

Langdon Blight Adelaide, SA