Corkage or not, thanks to this and other threads I have been able to identify restaurants early, and I have a slew of reservations lined up. I can't wait!

No, to identify good wine... The US is sort of sparse on South African wines, so I guess I'll pick up a Platter guide at the airport and start reading once I land...

Platter is also online (www.platteronline.com).

You can't view the 2006 book unless you subscribe (or buy the book?), but earlier years (including 2005) are available after registration.

Arthur,

I'm on it right now.

Enjoy! And I trust the reality will exceed the virtual! :-)

I've just re-read your OP and the words "not recommended". If a restaurant says that (verbally, or in a restaurant guide) then despite my stated view of "to hell with others' opinion") I'd almost certainly not BYO. I might think about whether I really wanted to visit that restaurant, but if I did I'd not feel comfortable not "taking the hint". A possible exception would be if I had a really old and/or special vintage, and I had also discussed this with the restaurant beforhand. But for a visitor purchasing locally, that woudn't be the case.

Again please excuse the typos, I really can spell.

Arthur, if you use Internet Explorer, try going to the View Menu and setting the Text Size to Large. There should be something along same lines in most internet browsers...

Thanks Kavey. I know about that option, but I use Firefox for most things including this forum. But having said that, if I WAS using IE I KNOW I wouldn't have remembered the option! Maybe Firefox has something similar, I'll check. I had a detached retina op in my right eye, and there's still a gas bubble that slowly dissipates. So that eye can't at present compensate for a slight horizontal distortion that I have in my left eye after detached retina and cataract ops I had a few years ago.

I just blame it on my poor spelling... ;-)

:-))