Restaurant Tipping on Wine

[hotwine]

Welcome to the board, Dave.

In my own not-so-humble opinion, any effort to protect the wine server with a guantanteed gratuity should be tempered by an analysis of your price structure. For example, if you're already charging 3X the wholesale price of a bottle of wine, I think it would be inappropriate to tag on an additional XY% of the bottle's price (to the customer) as a firm gratuity for the wine server; better that you would use a portion of the wine's margin as a reserve for the server. On the other hand, if you're operating on very slim margins, then adding 10% of retail to the bottle's price might not be a bad idea, provided that fact is clearly stated on the menu and bill. Just my two cents.