To tip, or not to tip: Should diners calculate gratuity on wine?

From time to time, a reader sends me a letter that I think might be of interest to many readers.

Such was the case when the following note landed in my inbox recently, so I’m answering it here:

I’m hoping you could help clear up my confusion about tipping with wine. I’ve been told from a server with 5 star restaurant experience and friends with a love of fine dining that you don’t include the price of wine in the tip calculation due to the markups. Can you shed any light on this subject? — Steve Fitzgerald

Tips and markups are two separate things that tend to go to different parties — the tip goes to the server to acknowledge good service while the markup goes to the establishment to cover business costs. So I can’t imagine not tipping on the wine portion of the meal because of the markup.

One wouldn’t skip the tip on a plate of steak frites because of a presumed high markup, so why do so with the wine? That’s certainly my take on the topic.

Toronto Star etiquette columnist Karen Cleveland agrees.

“I’ve never heard of this convention. I can’t rationalize why anyone would tip less because of the markup of wine. Everything in a restaurant is marked up — the gratuity should reflect the overall bill.”

While it’s customary to tip on both food and drinks at a restaurant with a baseline of about 15 to 20 per cent, there’s one time when it makes sense to shift this approach. And that’s when you bring your own bottle of wine — a privilege some restaurants choose to offer.

In this circumstance, I see it as appropriate and considerate to double the estimated retail price of the wine and tip on that amount. Doing so acknowledges the same level of service as drinking from the wine list.

Of course most restaurants will charge a corkage fee of between $10 and $45 for the pleasure of bringing your own bottle, but that charge is never a substitute for gratuity. Rather, it helps offset the costs of drinking your own wine on premises.

After all, not only does the business not receive the markup on the bottle you would otherwise be ordering, it incurs all the other expenses of you drinking wine there — the provision of stemware, employing knowledgeable service staff, paying fees for a liquor licence and so forth.

Restaurants don’t have to let diners bring their own wine, so if they do and I take advantage of the kind offer, I like to practise the golden rule. To me, that means giving back a little. I might acknowledge a wellcomposed wine list by ordering an interesting sparkling wine to start the evening, or not skip the chef’s special dessert or cheese plate. And of course, fair tipping matters.

I encourage everyone to be mindful when paying electronically, though. Hand-held terminals tend to prompt diners to tip by either percentage of the bill or dollar amount, but some terminals calculate the chosen tip percentage on the post-tax amount while gratuity should always be based on the pre-tax figure.

Wine included.