Open Wine Bottles

We had a nice dinner (à deux — with Emma at her sleep-away camp and Pascal in Maine with his best buddy Zach) at Mulino’s Trattoria in Northampton on Saturday night. We had an acceptable bottle of Chianti Classico and struggled to finish it, especially since I still had to drive us back to our camp site in the Erving State Forest quite a ways away. Just as we were leaving we saw a sign on the door saying that the restaurant was in compliance with the new law allowing patrons to take partially consumed bottles of wine home after a meal, properly resealed etc. A while ago, we knew that such a law was being discussed but we had no idea it had finally been passed.

Indeed:

The Massachusetts Legislature has amended Massachusetts law now to allow every holder of a “restaurant” or “hotel” type license issued under M.G.L. c. 138, § 12 to permit “a patron to retain and take off the premises only so much as may remain of a bottled wine purchased by the patron in conjunction with a meal and not totally consumed by the patron during such meal; provided further, that the bottle shall be resealed in accordance with regulations promulgated by the commission. [from the site of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission]

The law passed against the veto of Governor Romney. No idea why he vetoed it. The change is a great idea.