Unfortunately, in most cases restaurants want to charge a high corkage fee in order to force you to purchase wine off their list....

Examples.....

Dining Room at R-C SF....$25, where I brought a Cos 70 and a Montrose 70, and I thought $50 was reasonable....

Last week at Pacific's Edge at the Park Hyatt Carmel, they charged me $35 per bottle!! I had '82, '83, '85, '86 Ducru Beaucaillou, and I thought the $35/bottle was a bit high.....just for comparison, they listed the '95 Ducru for $450 on their list, and the '97 for $250.....

So yes, if there are more wine friendly fine dining restaurants, I'd DEFINITELY patronize them more often!

I remember once I was in a good restaurant (name escaped me) in Vancouver, and they have a policy of charging corkage for wines that are less than 15 years old....(e.g. in 2003 they charge a corkage of $20 for every bottle of wine younger than 1988)....I thought that was quite an excellent policy....to waive the corkage or charge less for older bottles..... ^