Any idea how many glasses that you all used that night?
lol! Here in Texas it’s tough to find a high end establishment that will allow corkage. You are bringing your own food too!!! 
Don’t worry…Fu can expense acct the bill…we’ll split the tip!
Well we didn’t break any. Used 13 champagnes, 13 waters and 39 reds.
Assuming good service- about 20% on everything, or around $225.
I also tip extra when we BYO- not 20% of the value of the bottles, but certainly a total tip on the actual bill of food + corkage fees of 30%, or perhaps more if we have had a lot of bottles and took up a lot of table/server time. And any decent BYO ties up a table a lot longer than your average time for a group dinner.
To each his own, but the etiquette seems pretty clear to me. And there is a decent sized list of wine collectors- including a couple on this BB- who are never allowed to dine with me again because they get stingy at tip time.
If you don’t want to pay, then don’t play. Have a bottle at home where you can use your own glassware and linger at the table as long as you like.
I am shocked at the 20% recommendations here. Tipping the same amount for wine that is already marked up 1.5-3x as a meal that was designed, purchased in raw material, prepared and served seems crazy.
I would (and have) tip $50/person for that dinner. At minimum.
Do you really want to do that?
That’s about half the number of glasses I was thinking. This is a more of a real world situation for me than ordering a $1000 bottle off of a list, which is something I would never do. I would not presume to say what you should have done, but I would have felt obliged to do 35%-40% or 20% and $15-$20 per bottle.
Dan’s comment comes into play here I think. With rare exceptions, if I spend more than $200 on a wine from a restaurant wine list it is because the price is very favorable in light of current market pricing. I suspect most of us are looking at restaurant storage conditions and current market value of a bottle versus what the original markup might have been when the wine was originally purchased.
I think you also have to consider cash flow. A well stocked high end wine list is a massive cash flow drain on a restaurant- and that has to be taken into account. More generally, in my numerous hobbies I often find myself selling or helping other people sell things. The one thing that really drives what a dealer will pay you is cash flow- or how long they think it will take them to resell what they purchased from you.
With a restaurant- and especially one that takes great pains to stock high dollar bottles- you are paying the same kind of premium you would to certain high end wine stores that many like to criticize. The markup is there because someone will eventually buy the bottle and the customer base in general wants that bottle and many like it to be available when they want it. And then it becomes that game of how much do you shrink the potential customer base with a higher price with the cost/benefit of slower cash flows and higher returns on your investment.
Pilferage is also a big issue. I worked ITB in retail in Austin through most of college and graduate school, plus have kept a hand (and an ear) in the business since with the appraisal work I do. People quitting or being fired from restaurants coincides with a few nice bottles going missing with some frequency. And that has to be paid for somehow.
Finally- I have been at a few dinners (business settings, not paying personally) where 4 or 5 figures of wine was ordered off the wine list. When that happens, at least in my experience, the level of table service goes through the roof. More people, and higher level people, get involved. A free amuse or two between courses etc. etc. And so of course that has value too.
Totally agree. Always amazed at some of the points of view on similar threads.
Let’s talk bigger numbers. I think $1000 wine bill with a $200 tip doesn’t seem much to anyone tip wise.
How about $800 food bill and $5000 wine bill for 4 btls for 4 people. Still 20%? Assuming all service is good.
And that’s just the whites 
Dine n dash? ![[whistle.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/87d24eb81ec6dc01d84f3d6c19fa9a357e90218e.gif "whistle"){kind=small}
Let’s talk smaller numbers:
You park yourself at a four-top booth at the Waffle House and nurse the refills of your $2 coffee while perusing the NYT for two hours. Are all of you “it’s 20% or bust” telling me that you should simply leave her $0.40?
I think some of you have simply become to blind to the American approach to paying restaurant help to acknowledge that such a system is flawed.
In practical terms, I think as much or more.
At this level, in my experience it is a business meal most of the time. And no one with any business sense wants to be observed undertipping in that situation (nor is there any personal incentive to do so.)
This thread, just like all the same ones before it, really illuminates how irritating America’s tip culture can be at times. Why don’t we just pay servers an honest working wage, and not have to worry ourselves with tipping? Or, why don’t more restaurants do what is done by French Laundry, Alinea, and others, by simply adding a mandatory tip to the bill?
I think the rarity of the bottle might/should factor into the tip, as well. I’m not sure a $250 bottle of recent release Caymus Cab. should be treated the same as a $250 bottle of aged Cab Franc, or aged Bordeaux, or young {fill in the blank with a HTF wine/producer}. Presumably, a lot less work, care, time, and attention go into stocking the Caymus as go into stocking the others mentioned.
On food, I usually add 30%. But on wine, I will certainlly take into account the mark-up on the bottle.
If I am sitting down and eating- the tip will always be at least $3-4, even if I only spend $8. This is not a difficult concept- there is a certain basic service provided no matter how fancy the meal.
I do not think we have become blind- we just have this system and it is what it is. Some say it is flawed- but I have yet to read a good explanation along with a solution.
If it changes, I will change with it- but only after the servers are getting paid a proper wage relative to the level of service the restaurant provides. A friend of mine learned the hard way on Facebook not long ago that proposing an end to tipping is a great way to piss off food service professionals who derive much of their income from tips.
Can’t agree more… flawed system… just pay the servers a living wage… and include the tip in the price… include taxes too…
one number… eat… drink … pay… so much easier…
tipping culture is such BS…