Umami Burger’s truck has been parked today on Citrus just north of Melrose, and in addition to a welcome expansion to my lunchtime options (and an unwelcome expansion of my belly), I’m pleased to report that Adam Fleischman, owner of the enterprise, made a most generous offer to me as I waited for my burger:

For any bottle purchased at domaineLA, Adam will waive corkage at the Umami Burger locations that are licensed to serve wine. This leaves out the original La Brea location, but includes Los Feliz and Cahuenga (and, perhaps, Santa Monica when it opens).

So, come get a bottle of wine and pop it open at Umami on the house. Make sure to tell me that you intend to do so when purchasing the wine, and I’ll mark the bottle so Umami knows where it came from.

Also, I have a similar arrangement with Susan Feniger’s Street, so if you have yet to try that restaurant out and want to bring your own, stop by and I’ll help you pair something with your pupusas. Again, let me know so I can mark the bottle.

Cheers to a great 2010 with lots of yummy, affordable food and wine for all.

Reader Nicole wrote us with a question after our Corkage Week post on dos and don’ts: if one is going to a restaurant that features a geographic-based wine list (in her example, she chose an LA spot that has only Italian wines) and she wants to bring her own bottle, is it impolite to bring a wine that is regionally off-topic? She’d like to bring a Cali Cab.

In all honesty, we’re not sure how to answer this question so we think this is the perfect time for a poll (and please leave comments, since there are so many nuances to this topic!).

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Personally, we think that it could go any of these three ways. Clearly bringing a Cali Cab would be following the “don’t bring a wine that’s already on the list” tip, so that’s a plus. But the restaurant clearly has a strong POV (Italian wine with Italian food) so maybe somehow they’d be offended to see a non-Italian wine come through their doors.

However, if you were to bring a bottle of Italian wine that wasn’t extremely special…maybe they’d be more offended, since they spent so much time selecting an array of Italian wines appropriate for the food they serve that it might seem a slap in the face for one to drop in with something that is more or less the equivalent of wine they already serve.

Mostly, we lean to the rights of the customer: you’re paying, so you should get to do what makes you happiest (but be aware that these issues might crop up!).

What do you think?

These tips are based on bringing a bottle to a restaurant that serves alcohol and has its own wine list (and do not apply necessarily to bringing wine to restaurants without a license):

Do take a special bottle - special doesn’t mean expensive, but it should be something you’ve put thought into.

Do call ahead or look online to confirm that the restaurant doesn’t sell the same bottle you’re planning on bringing.

Do ask the waiter or sommelier if they’d like to taste the wine.

Do consider ordering a glass off the wine list (bubbly perhaps?) as a gesture of good faith (but this is not necessary).

Don’t bring a bottle that’s on the restaurant’s wine list (yes, a repeat of the first “do” above!).

Don’t bring the cheapest bottle you can find.

Insulting to the restaurant, and not worth it to you from a savings perspective ($15 corkage on a $5 bottle retail means you’re paying at least 500% mark-up from wholesale, greater than most wine lists charge.

Don’t bring too many bottles with you!

Many restaurants have a 2 bottle limit for corkage…if you want to bring a wine tasting group into a restaurant for a special occasion and bring more, call ahead to discuss with the wine director and they’ll likely figure out an arrangement that works for both your group and the restaurant.

Don’t feel awkward, or feel like you have to somehow justify bringing your own. You’ll be paying in many cases for the right, and that’s that.

We thought we’d get Corkage Week off the a good start by tipping you off to a few spots in LA that offer free corkage, at least for the time being. We realize that the BYO option is not legal in all parts of the country (Virginia is off-limits, for instance). But in Los Angeles, it’s at least semi-legal — restaurants without licenses technically shouldn’t be letting you bring your own alcohol in, but many (most) do allow this, and do not charge a fee for doing so. Restaurants with licenses generally allow you to bring your own wine in, but normally charge a fee ($10 on up) for you to do so. We’ll profile costs at LA-area restaurants later this week.

Our plan was to go to LAmill, a coffee roaster/shop in Silverlake that has a dinner menu care of Providence. But when we arrived, a sign greeted us saying that they’d applied for a license with the ABC, and that no outside liquor would be allowed in during their probationary period. We decided to leave, since a glass of wine was definitely in order on Friday. Scratch LAmill off your list of free corkage restaurants in LA. Read more…