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+--- Thread: Talk about strange logic.................. (/thread-2901.html)
- mrdutton - 05-20-2000
I question whether or not this belongs here or in RANTS and RAVES, but it sure does involve wine and stupid (IMHO) laws.
Yesterday evening a group of us went out to dinner to a local restaurant that is quite popular, not especially up-scale, but very friendly, familiy oriented with quite decent food. They have a very short wine list: Pinot Noir, Pinot Grigio, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling and Merlot (one of each).
We were all going to order their hamburgers, which are quite good. Ground and handmade on-site from a mix of ground sirloin and ground chuck.
I'd just bought that case of '98 Jean Descombes Morgon (mentioned elsewhere) and thought that would be great to belong along for our meal.
I called the place ahead of time and spoke with the manager. I asked about bringing in our own and offered to pay whatever corkage fee she thought reasonable. She was not sure about the laws regarding such a thing (because no one had ever asked this favor of her) but she said to go ahead and bring in the wine.
When we arrived, I brought two bottles. One as a gift for the manager. It was then that she informed me that BYOB was absoluetly forbidden. She aplogized and explained that she'd called the owner, he called the Virginia ABC and they said NO, not under and circumstance can a customer BYOB. Not beer, not wine, not hard liquor, not even a soda-pop; no way, no how, forbidden, end of subject.
I said no problem and handed her the cardboard box (which held two bottles perfectly) and told her to take it in the back, remove one bottle for herself and then return the box with the other bottle when it was convenient.
During our conversation, she further explained that if I'd bought the wine at the restaurant and did not finish it, then I could have them cork it and take it home with me. Perfectly legal, she said, but for wine only.
That's ridiculous. This reasoning can't possibly be to try to protect the distributor or the restaurant. The only way I could easily purchase the wine was through a dealer, who had to get it from the same distributor as the restaurant would have gotten it had it been on their wine list.
The law prohibits me from buying wine over the internet, UNLESS I buy the wine from a business physically located and licensed to do business in Virginia.
I could go out of the state, buy the wine elswhere, but then I face a whole bunch more rules and regulations designed to prevent me from 'importing' wine across the state line.
This really is absurd. I can buy the wine in the restaurant, not drink all of it and take it home. But I can't buy the wine and bring it to the restaruant and offer an appropriate corkage fee.
On a lighter note, the manager made sure that our wine was on the house. So we had Pinot Noir with our hamburger instead of Gamay. The waitress was tipped as if the wine had appeard on the tab.
[This message has been edited by mrdutton (edited 05-20-2000).]
- winecollector - 05-20-2000
Welcome to the world of wine buerocracy! The place where wine laws are made to protect the establishments interest in making a buck, and give unnecessary power to governmental officials! I wonder what state is the most wine friendly, possibly California? If anybody knows, let us know. Pennsylvania isn't any better, and I'm ready to move!
You're truly a class act, Dutton! I probably would have taken my wine bottle back and left!
- Innkeeper - 05-20-2000
Is Cabernet Blanc a blush?
- Jason - 05-20-2000
I think that corkage is illegal in many states, but gets overlooked as a method of accomodating customers. The only thing I've ever heard as an explanation is the state is afraid it will lose money if everyone starts bringing their own stuff. In most places, if a house has a license, than everything in the house must be tracable back to an invoice from a licensed distrib.
In little crappy bars, it is not unheard of for the owner to buy all of his stuff at retail.
Liquor is a major revenue maker, and formally bankrolled the mob, so the lawmakers go to extremes in regulating it.
As always, the single vineyards Zins get lumped in with Jack Daniels in the eyes of the law.
- mrdutton - 05-20-2000
Innkeeper, yeah its a new grape invented by fingers thinking faster than the dyslexic brain can move.
Another embarrassing moment......... [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/redface.gif[/img]
- Innkeeper - 05-21-2000
In Maine there is no corkage. Restaurants have to buy there hard liquor at retail (read State stores or specially licensed and price controlled private stores). There is a special state store in Kittery, at the southern end of the state that has reduced prices to compete with New Hampshire. Restaurants have asked to be able to buy booze at Kittery prices upstate, and were refused. They can drive to Kittery if they so choose.
Beer and wine is delivered to restaurants by distributers. The same distributers! Twenty five years ago when they moved to take wine out of the state stores, the beer distributors moved to take over distribution. So with the exception of Gallo, who "somehow" got to distribute their own stuff, all other wine goes through beer distribution. This distribution system is divided up horizontally, and the economy, population, and roads run vertically. So wine that is available in one coastal or river valley town, may not be in the next town up the road.
All the wine and liquor is taxed twice. The distributors have to pay a 5.5% on all wine they bring into the state (giving them a big incentive to try new brands). This even results in only certain wines in some brands coming into the state. Restaurants pay 5.5% on the liquor that they have to buy retail. Wine, beer, and liquor bought retail by the general public gets taxed 5.5%. However, if you buy wine, beer, or liquor in a restaurant the general public pays 10% tax. This is to "discourage drinking and driving", despite the fact that you can go into a "Variety store" (beer, pizza, and videos) and buy a "suitcase" of beer at 5.5% tax. Up here, as they say, when you buy a pickup, a sixpack comes as standard equipment! Yet, a couple having a glass or two of wine with dinner in a restaurant, have to pay a higher tax so they don't drive home drunk.
- Thomas - 05-21-2000
Fellows, fellows. Alcohol control laws are widely stupid first, because they are left up to the individual states and second, because they are left up to the individual states. Alcohol legislation in the fifty states concerns itself with taxes, with so-called sin and third with protecting whatever constituency has the most "bakshish" to hand out; or is the sequence the other way around?
Don't try to figure out why, just fight to get the bastards to change the laws....
Yes, Pennsylvania is among the worst--corruption isn't defined in that system, it is transcended. No, California is not the most friendly--it was, once.
- winoweenie - 05-22-2000
Arizona sure as the blazes doesn`t qualify as the friendliest wine area. Our laws are so convulated that even the state can`t give you a defining answer on when and where you can bring a bottle. Travelling the west, I would like to know what state is more wine-friendly than Calif. Have never had one ounce of trouble there. Winoweenie