Posted at Saturday, February 26, 2005  EDT  

Oenophiles online

Jordan Press,  Globe and Mail Update

When Ontario began allowing restaurant patrons to bring their own bottles, wine lovers rejoiced -- and some wanted to spread the news. Barely a month after BYOW was launched, three websites have sprung up to guide diners to restaurants that welcome brown baggers.

"To have BYO thrive in Toronto it needs to be advertised a little bit," says Stacey Sinclair, who along with husband Matthew runs byotoronto.net. Their site lists 14 restaurants, and features a forum for diners to share their experiences. (There are only four posts, but these are still early days.)

The most comprehensive of the sites is bringmywine.ca. It lists 32 restaurants across the province (21 in Toronto) and allows visitors to search by town or corkage fee. It also has a newsletter alert, so registered users can find out when new venues are added.

A third site is run by John Downs, a radio reporter for 640Toronto. Byotoronto.com lists 10 restaurants ready for diners to raid their home cellars for fees ranging from a $1 Tuesday special at the Old Spaghetti Factory to a whopping $60 at Susur.

Most of these sites are still in development. Like a fine vintage, perhaps they need time to mature.