One of the secrets frequent wine drinkers indulge in is bringing their own wine along when they eat out at a favorite or new restaurant. It's called paying a corkage fee referring to the fact the waiter is merely uncorking the wine for you, decanting if necessary and providing the guests with wine glasses. This is a very common practice in many Western countries but it's a much rarer practice in Israel but growing in popularity as the wine industry and culture matures.

      The advantage for the wine drinker becomes obvious when the numbers are crunched. Let's take a bottle of wine that retails for about 40 NIS. I know one restaurant that sells the wine to diners for 130 NIS. This is a common mark-up for wine in restaurants. The restuarant charges 30 NIS for a corkage fee. So if you brought in a simiiar wine it would cost you  40 plus 30 equling 70 NIS almost half the price of buying it on premises.  The savings even get more dramatic when you consider 100 NIS bottles might go for over 300 NIS when dining out.

      Some restuarant owners, managers and waiting staffs are dumbfounded when you ask about corkage fees but there are some traditional customs about corkage fees that the consumer should expect to comply with including:

1) Most corkage fees are per bottle and I've seen them range from 10 NIS to 50 NIS in Israel. I've heard a few restaurants charge per person which is saying they really don't want to encourage the practice. Some restuarants who wanted to encourage new customers have completely waived the charge for those ordering entrees.

2) It's customary not to bring in wines that are already on the wine list.  Restuarants realize that even with a list of hundreds of wines (which isn't uncommon in the US or Europe but very uncommon in Israel) that they can't stock every wine for every customer's taste (though some make a better effort than others). So, if you have your heart set on a wine it's sort of a way of the restuarant saying we'd rather you eat here if you have the wine we don't carry. Call ahead and check if you're unsure.

3) It's customary to offer a small taste to the waiter, sommelier or manager.  Many will refuse but still it's a noble gesture and it should typically be less than a half a glass.  It's a way of educating the staff and sometimes if they're  appreciative on being introduced to a new exciting wine they haven't tried they'll waive the corkage charge. It's one of the easier things not to ring up on your bill since no one typically tracks corkage fees as they do food and beverage orders.

4) Some wine shops and wineries have special relationships with restaurants that will waive corkage for bottles brought in to encorage being referred by the shop or winery.

     As you begin to become a corkage fee practitioner, you'll find yourself becoming more comfortable with what at first might seem a bit awkward and not for the faint of heart but the savings might help you drink better wine and more frequently as you dine out.

Buying Wine, Liquor and other Spirits in Israel can be dramatically different than say in the United States or even most other countries.  There are far more outlets, as Israeli businesses typically aren't restrained from seling liquor by coomunity zoning restrictions or prohibitively available or expensive liqour specific liscening.

Kiosks, the closest equivilent to an American convenience store in Israel, usually carry wine but only a sparse selection of a few bottles and at a ridiculous mark-up. For instance a botlle that might sell for 27 NIS might sell for 80 NIS. It's an outlet best suited for unknowing tourists, late night revelers and those in a rush.

Supermarkets in Israel tend to have much larger selections but typically carry only entry level wines. For instance, many larger wineries have 4 to 6 series of wine graduating in quality. The supermarkets typically only sell the first two levels sometimes carrying the third tier but rarely premium wines.

Some wineries intentionally block sales of either all their wines or their higher tier wines being sold in supermarkets because they believe there's a stigma associated with selling wine in the supermarkets and that many finer restaurants do not want to place "supermarket" wine on their wine lists.

With over 5,000 wine labels in Israel few if any wine shps come close to offering all the wines available in israel. Vino Cigar, a prominent wine shop in the Azriella Center in Tel Aviv, estimated they carry about 1,000 bottles and shy away from carrying low-end wine that is extremely price competitive and offers for the retailer low returns per bottle for valuable shelf space.

It's also not that uncommon for many retail outlets to only carry Kosher wines (which many of Israel's best wines are). Over 90% of the wine produced in israel is kosher as the top 30 commerical producers are kosher. Yet, about 80% of the wineries are not kosher since so many smaller wineries don't bother seeking Kosher supervision and approval and the added cost of hiring only sabbath observant Jews to work with the wine until the winery in question is producing more than 100,000 bottles a year (the often quoted plateau wineries believe warrant the additional costs involved).

One of the more enjoyable options is to shop at the source. The only place you'll typically find the complete selection of a winery is at the winery itself. In Israel, most of the wineries offer their wines at reasonable prices compared to other the supermarkets, kiosks and wine shops that carry their wine. There is often exclusive deals not offered elsewhere and sometimes exclusive distribution of some limited edition wines. If one's lucky a barrel tasting of a still aging wine or an unreleased bottled wine might be in the cards as well.

Another interesting option is the ecological friendly refilling station a winery might offer, something unheard of in the highly regulated United States. For example, at the Tishbi Winery in Binyamina, they offer their entry level Cabernet Sauvignon/Petire Sirah wine that retails for 32 NIS/bottle for only 19 NIS a liter which translates into 14.25 NIS a standard 750ml bottle (about $3.50). Repeat customers or those in the know bring in old wine bottles, vodka bottles even plastic water bottles of all sizes and shapes to take advantage of these rock bottom prices.

      So, when you work in the wine industry, everyone thinks you must be some kind of a drunk and though I might get intoxicated time to time I can assure I probably drink less in quanity but maybe more in quality than many of my readers or friends.  One way this happens is many times when I'm near wine I'm talking business or tasting wine (which usually includes spitting) and other times when I'm drinking wine it's with other wine people and we savor what were drinking and I can enjoy smelling a great wine as much as drinking it. I also like enjoying letting a wine open up in the glass a half hour or and hour tasting it as it opens up.

Recently, I had a chance to drink with some of my favorite wine geeks in Israel (and meet a few new ones). This is heavan for me. If there's an afterlife I hope they're serving good wine accompanied by good food, good company and good conversation. Such was this day at Ido Lewinsohn's Lewinsohn Winery as about a dozen of us dined with his family and tried a verticle and horizontal tasting of his ever more popular cult status "Garage du Papa" wines.

    There's some winemakers and wineries that have been extremely generous with their time and wine as I journey through and journal about Israeli wines: the Tishbis, the staff at Carmel & Yatir, the Margalits, Eli at Domaine Castel and Ido with his wines and those of Recanati.  There are others who have been as generous but time after time the forementiond have been great mentors and from time to time I should thank them publicly as much as I hope I do privately. 

    So, I mention this because when Ido asked me to come to a tasting at his family's house/winery, I didn't have to think twice about booking a spot at his table. Another reason is that Ido much like his mentor and friend Assaf Marglait are wine mavens who have many of Israel's most interesting, influential, dynamic and curious winos in their gravitional orbit so when I meet with them it can often lead meeting another chain of wine contacts and if I keep my ears open and my taste buds ready I'm bound to learn a thing or two more about winemaking and what makes these wizards of wine and their tick.

   Those of us lucky enough to be invited weren't only rewarded by his fabulous wines but his mother cooked us crepes (maybe to bolster our tolereance levels) and there was some treats set as we drank 2007, 2008 and the still fermenting 2009 Lewinsohn "Garage du Papa" Chardonnay. This wine has been selling out due to the efforts of just a few outlets. Granted only a few barrels were bottled but still at about 150 NIS to 175 NIS retail ($45 to $55 two to three times that price in Tel Aviv restuarants where it's mostly sold.  This "Old World" style Chardonnay is making some noise in the marketplace as one of the most expensive and hard to find (but worth every penny or argarot) Israeli white wines.