Advice on this site about tipping for wine [Archive]

teleburst

07-01-2004, 07:19 PM

I was just wondering why this site says that it's OK to tip 10% for wine and 10-15% of the alcohol. Earlier in the text, you say, "With proper tipping etiquette, the percentages of your tips do not change because of the cost of the service". Isn't this exactly what you're advocating?

Most people that I know tip a percentage on the final total (either pre-tax or post-tax depending on their bent). Why does wine and alcohol get tipped separately? It's part of the "cost of the service". If you decide to get the filet instead of the chicken, are you saying it's okay to tip as if you were getting the chicken?

I guess I'd like to know what the rationale for this advice is. I've heard some say that it's because of the markup on wine - that it's just too expensive. Well then, you get a cheaper bottle (which ironically will probably be marked up more than the $150 bottle. I've also heard said that it's no more service to serve an expensive bottle of wine than it is a cheaper bottle. Well, there's no more service involved in serving the filet over the chicken either and you don't use that to tip less on the food bill. Also, in many restaurants, an expensive bottle gets special crystal glasses, which the server has to wash by hand. But you might say, "Well, it's normal to tip a dedicated sommelier 10%, right"? That might be true. But that sommelier is making $40 - 100,000 a year without tips. Sure, they do a lot of extra work like building the wine list and stocking the cellar. But they don't get paid $2.13 - 6.00 an hour either and they don't have all of the extra work that a "lowly server" has either.

So, I guess I'm asking Mr. Lewis (who doesn't even drink alcohol) to explain his logic. Also, I'm inviting commentary on this. It's important to me because I sell a lot of wine :chuckle:. Also, if you're going to hold yourself up as a reference, you should probably get it right (right being my opinion, of course - just kidding). Perhaps in the day of the ubiquitous wine steward, this advice was correct, but most restaurants these days don't have them and the server, who, if they are good has spent a lot of time on their own learning the wine list, is the person who serves the wine, not a $50,000 a year employee.

Thank you for your response to this.

teleburst

07-02-2004, 08:33 AM

Originally posted by jamesglewisf
Thanks for your post.

To be honest, I got the 10% from my father. His wine collection is bigger than that of most fine restaurants. That said, he could still be wrong.

I don't claim to be without error. That's why I like to have the forums where we can discuss it.

Help me out with some research (other sites) or other people's opinions. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly change it.

See, that's the thing. Advice is all over the board. I'm hoping to help correct this though :chuckle: Here's a site that says 15%- 20% of the wine total to the sommelier or 15 - 20% on your total bill:

http://azaz.essortment.com/tipping_rdef.htm

"Server at a full-service restaurant 15% to 20% of your total bill. If youve used a discount or received any free items, you should tip on the amount that your bill would have come to if youd paid full price. If your party is large or placing many special requests, you should increase your tip appropriately
.
"Sommelier 15% to 20% of your total wine expenditures".

However, at the Oribinal Tipping Guide,

http://www.tipping.org/tips/TipsPageRestaurant.html

this bizarre advice:

"Also, tips involving liquor should follow the following guidelines:

"If one bottle of wine was ordered, then it is usually okay to include it's cost into the tip calculation.
If there is a lot of wine ordered or if the price of a single wine bottle is above $10, I think it's cost should NOT be included in the final tip calculation".

And yet, the site continues by saying that you should pay the wine steward 15% of the wine bill. the only way that this makes sense is that presumably you're paying for the expertise of the steward. However, the OWNER of the restuarant is already paying for that expertise. In a way, that's like tipping the chef for his masterful meal. Frankly, I've never seen a $10 bottle of wine on a wine list, so basically, Manny is saying that no bottle of wine should ever be tipped on.

At this site:

http://www.magictrips.com/plan/tipping.shtml

"Dining: Full-service 15-20% of total bill"

At http://people.howstuffworks.com/tipping3.htm once again, contradictory advice:

"Restaurants and bars - Most of us know that we should tip waiters at restaurants 15% to 20% of the bill. But what if you bought a $100 bottle of wine? It didn't take any more effort for the waiter to open and pour it than it would have if you'd bought a $15 bottle. Should you still tip $20 extra? Although there is some debate here, it is often acceptable to tip less than 15% to 20% on an expensive bottle (or bottles) of wine that is served with dinner. Depending on the restaurant, you may also need to tip the sommelier or wine steward 10% to 15%. What you also have to remember is that your waiter tips all of the other servers who assisted them throughout your meal, such as the busboy, the bartender, and others".

How is it "often acceptable to tip less than 15% to 20% on an expensive bottle"? It's either acceptable or it's not, in my opinion. He doesn't say that it's often acceptable to treat the wine steard the same way. Most of them are paid a nice salary to provide their service in the first place.

There are plenty of sites that simply say 15 -20% of the total bill and I won't include them there. If you google "tipping guidelines", you'll find them. Travel sites like Travelocity simply talk about the final bill.

In one discussion on another board, someone pointed out to me that the owner of famed NYC restaurant Sardi's, says in writing that it's OK to tip 10% on expensive bottles or to lower the tip for big wine bills. Once again, I think this is because he has a sommelier that he already pays big bucks to (I could be wrong though).

I've already given you my take on it and some of my justification. Another argument that I've heard (it's stated above) is that it's no harder to serve a $200 bottle than it is a $30, so the tip shouldn't be any higher for the more expensive bottle. But, just like a wine bottle, this argument doesn't hold water. We don't use that rationale for food, do we? We don't say that you should tip less for expensive food because it take no more effort generally to bring it to the table, right?

I offer this up for your consideration, although you must certainly take it with a grain of salt because you don't know me personally. Up until recently, I worked in one of the top three restaurants in Nashville for wine (for 6 years). Oddly enough, probably because of the music industry and the huge health care industry, Nashville is considered one of the top places for wine sales per capita and home to a few of the most famous (in the wine world) wine collectors. The second (or possibly the first) largest singe wine auction in the States is held there.

Anyway, There are at least 5 regulars that dine there with 15,000+ bottle wine cellars, and scores of 5,000+ types. To a man, they all tip fully on wine. Not only that, when they bring their own wine in and pay the $15 corkage fee, they tip as if they had bought the bottle there (with one notable exception - and even *he* tips on the full value of wine purchased in the restaurant). They understand that they're actually taking sales away from the server and the restuarant when they bring their own bottle in and they don't want to screw the server out of what they would have normally sold them, however, they've got so much better in their cellar :g:. However, none of them would ever consider using a sliding scale for wine or treating it any differently than the rest of the bill.

I would say that 8 out of 10 guests seems to tip on the final bill without subtracting the wine. I remember one guy who didn't. It was Vanderbilt arent's Weekend and he had his daughter and a couple of her friends with him. He bought two bottles of wine that totalled something like $575 and his bill was $900. He only tipped me $100. While that might sound like a lot for waiting on 5 people, to me, spending $900 seems like a lot to spend on 5 people as well. If he could easily afford that, he should have been able to afford the tip. I'm fond of saying, "If you want to show off and be the bigshot, you need to be prepared to pay for the privilege". Nobody makes someone order big bottles of wine. They do it for a variety of reasons. But most wine lists give you inexpensive alternatives. Nobody makes you order the filet either, right? Yet you still tip on it.

Wine sales made up between 20 - 30% of my sales, so I wanted to note my bias.

Now, having said that, I'm perfectly willing to see a small reduction of tip on the wine and alcohol total simply because the tax is already included in the price of the bottle. While I tip on the final total, and I think that more people do it that way than on pre-tax, from my experience, I can't argue with people who don't want to tip on tax, even though it usually only makes a dollar or two difference in the tip. So, if you were going to tip 20% on pre-tax because the service was excellent, then heck, I'm not going to complain about 15% on the wine.

Just so you know, I've sold thousands of bottles of wine in my time, so I have a pretty good data base to choose from, *if* you choose to believe that. These days, in most restaurants, the sommelier is a dying breed. More and more servers are shouldering the burden of knowing huge wine lists and while we can never be as informed as a sommelier because we can't taste everything on the list, we are now the point of wine service.

Oh yeah, final thing for your consideration - if I am audited by the IRS, THEY aren't going to subtract the wine to determine my tip percentages and to determine whether or not I'm declaring all of my income. They will just take my credit card sales and run percentages and see what I'm declaring. Granted, they aren't going to necessarily expect 15% average across the board, but frankly, since they keep their percentages secret, who knows *what* kind of formula they use. I *have* been told when I've called and talked to an enforcement agent, that they do not make such adjustments, that the only accomodation they make is to account for tipout. So, if you have a sommelier, and you have to tip them out as a server, yes, you're not going to be penalized. But then again, you aren't going to get that portion of the tip either, right?

Thank you for allowing me to ramble.