Wine is a key ingredient for a magical meal and most of us are very particular about what wine we drink with our meals.

This is especially so when dining at restaurants with friends.

While most restaurants have wine lists with some degree of depth (better ones also have Nardone Baker wines available!!) many offer you the chance to BYO or Bring Your Own.

Here are a few accepted protocols you should keep in mind when choosing the BYO option. 

Even when the practice is legal, check if the restaurant allows or encourages it. When you make the reservation, ask if you can bring a special bottle to celebrate your birthday - even if it was four months ago and you've celebrated it weekly ever since. Even if you don't get a flat-out no, you may sense some resistance in the tone of voice or in the cheery information that you certainly can, but the corkage fee is $100. Then it's best to take your bottle elsewhere.

Don't take your best wines if the restaurant has poor glassware - it's an injustice to a great wine to be suffocated in one of those golf-ball-sized glasses. 

Avoid taking bottles that are already on the restaurant's list, unless you have a much older vintage that they don't stock. 

If the restaurant is casual, and if there are just two of you, put one bottle on the table; leave any others in your case under the table. Larger groups can set out enough bottles for everyone to start with a glass of wine.

Unless the restaurant's wine list is horrible, consider buying a glass to whet your appetite - if only as a goodwill gesture. A sparkling aperitif is ideal - and the wise diner wouldn't try transporting such an unstable wine.

It's also good form to offer a glass of your wine to the waiter. He or she can drink it, decline it or accept it to share with the chef.

Don't abuse BYO establishments by treating them as a cheap place to drink, ordering very little food and drinking lots of your own wine. Bringing your own wine to a restaurant is a privilege, not a right; and BYO restaurants won't last unless we support them honorably.

[Material adapted from the Nat Decants newsletter www.wine-lovers-page.com/natdecants ]