BYO wine goes upmarket

Call him extravagant but Kingsley Wood insists he is more than happy to pay a top-notch restaurant $15 a bottle for the privilege of bringing his own wine.

"What else can you do with special bottles that you have kept for years than take them to a restaurant where you love the food to enjoy the two together?" asks Wood, who owns First Glass Wines in Takapuna, Auckland.

In countries such as France where the notion of bringing your own wine is tantamount to suggesting bringing your own food, most diners would never dream of suggesting it.

In New Zealand it is different because BYO restaurants were de rigueur until the early 1990s.

The first New Zealand restaurant to be granted a liquor licence was Otto Groen's The Gourmet in Shortland St, Auckland. On December 13, 1961, Groen was granted permission to serve alcohol with food after a seven-year battle with the council. Groen was finally able to serve his customers alcohol at the table rather than turn a blind eye to the brown paper bags that lurked covertly beneath tables.

The minds of those in the industry are foggy as to exactly when the first BYO liquor licence was granted, says Neville Waldron, adviser to the New Zealand Restaurant Association, who believes it was in the early 1960s.

Today it costs a restaurant $132 for either a BYO or full liquor licence. This covers a one-year licence, subsequent to which it must be renewed for three years.

"There is no law about charging a corkage fee to customers but serving wine that people bring incurs the cost of having wine glasses, factoring in breakage and having staff to serve the wine," explains Waldron.

Restaurateur and chef Tony Astle charges $15 to $20 a bottle to BYO wine to Antoines restaurant in Parnell, Auckland.

"If somebody has a special bottle and we don't have it on our list then I am happy to let them bring it but we charge hefty corkage because there can be a lot to do with the wine."

This ranges from standing an old bottle up for days before decanting it. And then there is the definition of what constitutes special.

"Some people think a bottle of Lindauer is special but it isn't special to me so I'm not letting people define what they bring when we have an extensive cellar and wine list."

Astle is relatively unusual in allowing BYO, as is Sally Hindmarsh from Mezze in Birkenhead, Auckland. She has BYO nights every Tuesday and Wednesday.

She and Astle understand that the motivation of customers such as Kingsley Wood is not to scrimp on what they are paying for wine but rather to drink something special with good food.

Artist Karl Maughan took a bottle of old burgundy to a neighbourhood restaurant in March to drink with friends, knowing there was nothing comparable on the wine list.

"We had to persuade them to allow us to drink it but they were good natured once they had decided," says Maughan.

"I don't want to turn into a bore who only takes my own wine to restaurants but it is often difficult to find a wide range of wines to drink when you go out, unless you're going to top restaurants. It's frustrating because the food is often fantastic but the wine list doesn't live up to it."