Posted on 10/7/2004, 5:49:58 PM by ZGuy
The food is cold, the conversation is petering out, and the half-full bottle of Chianti Classico is sitting on the restaurant table like an admonition against overindulgence. It is nearly impossible to finish it. It is also illegal, in New York, to take it home.
Or, at least, it used to be illegal. Lawmakers in Albany may not be able to pass a state budget on time, but they recently dispatched this particular oenophilic dilemma with an amendment to the state liquor law that, for the first time, legalized taking leftover wine home from a restaurant.
The old rule against taking wine home meshed with the state's prohibition on open containers of alcohol in the street, a safeguard against public drunkenness and disorder. Restaurant owners have long dreamed of a change, figuring they could sell more wine if customers knew they could continue drinking it at home.
The Legislature agreed, but with a catch: The restaurant must "securely reseal" the bottle and place it in a tamper-proof, transparent bag.
Also, customers must leave the restaurant with more than the wine - specifically, a receipt they can show to inquiring police officers who might otherwise be suspicious of a semi-consumed bottle in a car. And the receipt must show that the customer ate a meal with the wine that is no longer in the bottle (but presumably is in the customer).
"I think it's great," said the restaurateur Drew Nieporent. "A majority of people want to try more than one wine, but if they're driving and want to be responsible, they'll realize they have to leave considerable amounts in the bottle. This is the opportunity to save it and drink it."
Not that many restaurant customers have done so in the almost five weeks since the State Liquor Authority posted word of the change on its Web site (www.abc.state.ny.us/). A check of a dozen Manhattan restaurants - some expensive, some moderately priced; some with world-famous chefs, some not - found only one that admitted to sending customers home with the wine they had not drunk with their meal.
Bernard Sun, the head sommelier at Montrachet, a restaurant Mr. Nieporent controls, said he had not sent any customers home with their leftover wine because he had not figured out the regulations.
"We're still waiting for all the details," he said. "I did research. It's complicated. It's not as simple as just putting the cork back."
Far from it. The State Liquor Authority's two-page bulletin spelled out the particulars and the penalties. It said that wine may be removed only from "a bona fide restaurant" with "suitable kitchen facilities connected therewith, containing conveniences for cooking an assortment of foods."
The kitchen, the bulletin said, "must, at all times, be in charge of a chef." (This would apparently exclude most taverns.)
The bulletin also explained that a partially consumed bottle of wine may be taken home only if it was "actually purchased in connection with a full-course meal." A full-course meal, the bulletin said, is the kind that is ordinarily eaten with tableware, and is not polished off "while standing or walking."
And then there is the bag requirement. The resealed bottle must be placed "in a onetime-use tamper-proof transparent bag," the bulletin said.
That left Mr. Sun, of Montrachet, looking for bags that would pass muster. "They," he said, referring to officials from the liquor authority, "haven't said where we can get them."
"I think restaurants will do this as soon as some company says, 'We sell one-time-use tamper-proof bags,' " Mr. Sun said. "Also, I don't know how much it's going to cost. If it's five bucks or something, we may have to talk to the customer."
The one restaurant that said it had already taken advantage of the new take-home rules was Alfredo of Rome, at 4 West 49th Street, near Fifth Avenue. An owner, Russell Bellanca, said "a couple of people" had heard about the change in the rules and had taken their wine with them. He said he expected the new regulations to prove most popular with customers who order red wines - "I think people feel the reds will keep," he said.
"There's no downside to this," he added. "Someone who probably would have had two glasses of wine now can order a bottle. Someone who was going to have one glass can order a bottle. And people will be less out to finish a bottle. They'll say, 'Let's finish it at home.' "
"makes sense to me" NY ping
Interesting. WA should consider a similar exception. It's illegal here to take it with you.
LOL! I have often teased about taking the wine home in a doggie bag! It is very funny that this takes precedence over a state budget and that there is a laundry list of rules for compliance.
I drink wine and, if you spend a lot on a bottle at a restuarant, it's nice to know that you can take it home.
But I've been doing that for years. I don't know if it's legal in the places I've done it, but I don't really care and I think the New York rules and just silly.
The bag problem shouldn't be too hard, they just need to seal it like the merchant bank deposit bags, those are plastic (but not see through) and when you seal them, you have to destroy it to open it again.
Will this be as hard to open as tamper-proof prescription bottles? If so, will they come back and make an adjustment when old folks can't reopen the bag?
Fox's newest reality show... When Bureaucrats Attack!
A cork can securely reseal a bottle and then all they have to do is put it in some sort of tamper-proof, transparent bag. The tamper proof thing intrigues me though.
No, I believe that in WA you can take a resealed bottle home with you; just has to be in the trunk or inaccessible to the driver.
...which makes for some very happy bus boys and wait staff.
It would probably be pretty easy.
Think of the US Mail bags you can use to send larger mail items (bag not a box). It is not a clear plastic bag but it seals with an adheasive and you have to open it by unzipping the dotted line.
If a cork was not enough for the bottle there are cheap wine bottle sealers that would do a better job of it.
Normal people just put the cork back and carry it out anyway.
The left over wine is a tip which is greatly appreciated and serves to educate the pallet of the waiter. You'd be surprized how clueless many people are about matching wines to meals. There are some salmon/wine combinations which run afoul in the mouth you wouldn't believe. Liver pate' and Filet Mignion are a challenge too. The liver is tough to compliment without some wierd chemicals becoming reactionary and the Filet Mignion is so flavorless, it's best to cook it rare and drown it in some sauce that's more compatable with a good wine.
Is a good idea.
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