Paying Corkage on Our Anniversary

Last weekend Ryan and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary. We are officially no longer newlyweds! We celebrated by spending the day soaking our stresses away at Banya 5 before hitting the city for an evening of great food and beverages. Happy hour was a cocktail-lover’s pub crawl. Beginning with martinis at the ZigZag Cafe, continuing with Puerto Rican rum at Place Pigalle, and finishing with pastis at Le Pichet, we were well lubricated on the finest of fine spirits before walking to the charmingly rustic Entre Nous for dinner.

This restaurant was a shear delight and exactly our kind of non-pretentious food-focused dining experience. The space was nothing special (the chairs looked like they came from a teriyaki joint), but it was surprisingly warm and inviting. From glorious fondue to mom’s chocolate cake, their recipes came from the French owner’s family. Rustic, simple, flavorful…yumm!

So Ashley, how was the wine list?

Well, Ryan and I didn’t even look. We paid a corkage fee and brought a bottle of a super premium Malbec we’ve been saving since our trip to Argentina. After decanting, it was a wonderful addition to our meal, and since the bottle was so valuable, the $15 corkage fee was well worth it.

Ryan and I are fans of bringing our own wine when we dine out, and many people ask me why we do it. Doesn’t it seem like a rip off to pay a dude $15-$25 to simply open a bottle of wine – particularly when you can find wine on the menu for $25-$30? Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. And it all comes down to arithmetic.

Generally restaurants charge about double the retail price for a bottle of wine (be nice to them. It is hard to make money in that business). See a $24 bottle on the menu? You could find it for $12 at the store. If the restaurant is charging a $15 corkage, you save money by buying the bottle off the menu. If it is a special occasion and you want a fine bottle of wine, corkage makes more sense. A $100 bottle at a restaurant would be $50 at a store. Buy it ahead of time, smack on the $15 corkage, and you have money left for an after dinner drink…or a cab home.

Being in the wine business, Ryan and I receive samples of free and fabulous wine all the time. Sometimes a winery will send us five or six bottles of their wine to see if we like it, and it is always a lot of fun to try one out with our dinner. Since the price to us is nothing, it is always worthwhile to bring it along. Or, if we buy wine, it is something rare that we find during our travels…again worth the corkage. For everyone else, I recommend giving the restaurant a call to learn the corkage fee ($15 is cheap. $20 is average. $50 is out there…and stupid), think about what you want to drink that night, see what wine you have sitting around the house, and do the math. (There is one caveat, sometimes restaurants go to great lengths to put together a fun, exciting, and reasonably priced wine list. If this is the case, give it a shot, you may find something you like!).

Never be afraid to bring your own wine. But a word of caution. You can bring 3 buck chuck, but the staff will be laughing at you in the kitchen. If you’re laughing with them, then go for it!

Selling Wine is Selling Moments

Every time I sell a bottle of wine I think about how it’s going to be the partner of an utterly unique moment. From a tranquil dinner at home with family, to boisterous parties with friends, to a private cry over a broken heart, wine is so intimately entwined with these experiences that they almost become the experience. Ryan will at times say, “Well, I sold 100 cases of experiences today!”

This past weekend I had one such experience. Our very dear friends Mario and Nicole are getting married in a couple of weeks, and Ryan and I attended a BBQ thrown in their honor by Mario’s father and step mother. While I love BBQs of burgers and beer, this was not that kind of BBQ. The couples’ lovely friends gathered together in a lush and lovingly tended garden filled with flowers and ripening tomatoes. As the home is close to the Puget Sound, scents of salt water drifted over the fence to mix with the sweet smell of briquettes cooking a baby pig that was roasted for the occasion. Strangers from different corners of Mario and Nicole’s life melted together into one big family as we toasted their future happiness and fortune. As the sun set, the summer sky was painted in brilliant orange as the guys swapped Simpson quotes and the gals quizzed Nicole on how she was going to do her hair on the big day. And acting as the social lubricant of it all was a charming collection of French white and rose wines staying cool in a lovely bucket of ice -- its condensation dripping onto the patio.

I wonder what experiences Elemental wine has graced over these past months. What did it look like? Was it happy or sad? Did someone get drunk? Was the wine noticed or was it a quiet companion to the moment?

How surreal it is to think of our wine being part of a stranger’s experience.

A Crusty Baguette & Portuguese Olive Oil: A UPS Guy’s Perfect Snack

My recent series of posts have shown why importing wine is the best and most beautiful job in the entire world. I’ve received many comments from friends saying, “Wow! I’ve read your blog, and you’ve had an incredible summer!” While true, I feel the need to bring to light the day-to-day realities of our business. When I’m particularly ‘centered’, I see that our daily happenings are just as exhilarating as driving the steep slops of the Douro . During other more ‘human’ moments, they land somewhere between infuriating and mundane, but oddly enough, they are always amusing.

Take, for example, Ryan’s recent trip to our neighborhood UPS store. Ryan mails samples of wine across the country weekly to prospective customers. The law requires that any box containing alcohol must be signed for by someone over 21 years old. UPS charges a hefty fee for that service, thus increasing our weekly shipping costs. But for us, this isn’t a problem. We budget for it.

Last week, Ryan attempted to mail two bottles of Portuguese olive oil (Elemental Olive Oil? Who knows?). The box looked like the right shape for wine. It had the correct weight for wine. And Ryan’s account showed past shipments of wine…so the shop owner took it upon himself to grill Ryan about the box’s content.

“What’s in the box?” asked the UPS shop owner.
“Olive oil,” responded Ryan.
“So there’s no wine in there?”
“No, Sir.”
The shop owner lifted the box. “So…no wine whatsoever?”
“No,” Ryan answered.
Not satisfied he pressed, “But you always send wine. Why are you now sending olive oil?”
“Because I have people who want to try the olive oil.”
Still skeptical, “So you’re only now deciding to send the same size and weight of box with olive oil rather than wine, thus making your shipment cheaper?”
“Yes.”
“Really? No wine?”
“Really.”
“Ummmff…OK, then.”

Ryan later told me that he wished he brought a nice crusty baguette along so that UPS guy could have tasted the oil before he shipped it. It would have shortened the conversation, and who knows? The UPS guy could’ve had a brother who retails olive oil!

Luckily, Ryan saw his package make it on the UPS truck. It was delivered in the end.