Well, in the US, it’s much less common to take your own bottle to the restaurant in the first place. Most restaurants don’t accommodate it and those that do will charge a significant corkage fee, to the point that it’s often cheaper just to drink from their selections. And until recently, my home state didn’t allow you to take open bottles away form restaurants, so the only options were to finish the bottle (which we often do anyway) or leave it. That’s finally changed here, but I believe many states still require bottles to be drunk entirely on premises.

Gewurtz is one of my favorites, along with Riesling. I prefer the spicier white wines, with citrus overtones, generally speaking. And of course I must support anything from my home region of Hawke’s Bay. I actually did a school project on why Hawke’s Bay was so suited to wine production. It’s nothing you couldn’t just look up on Wikipedia now though.