January 15th, 2007
The new corkage fee?
The tradition of a restaurant charging you a fee when you bring your own wine to their establishment (using their glasses and not buying their wine) is commonly known as “corkage.” As you wine drinkers know, many vintners are turning to screw caps, citing the high failure rate of corks as their motivation. What do restaurants call the fee for simply cracking open a screw cap wine bottle? I’m not sure, but I’d call it
SCREWAGE
January 16th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
One of my favorite moments in the silly movie Top Secret! (from the early days of Val Kilmer’s career, when he was in danger of being typecast playing goofy roles) is when they bring him his “1984 Ripple Blanc” and he sniffs the screw cap with a grand gesture. They pour the wine, and moments later the glass disintegrates amidst noxious-looking vapors.
Corkage: 15 bucks at the valley restaurant The Seashell last night. But the Mantanzas Crrek Chardonnay I brought probably would have fetched around 45-55 bucks, had it been on the wine list, so it was still overall a pretty good deal.