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I can buy wine in supermarkets in DC and Virginia and love it. It makes it easy to grab a bottle of something before going to a dinner party or whatever. You do bring up an interesting point, though - I wonder if I'd try different kinds of wine (less two buck chuck and more interesting wine) if I went to an independent store for my booze instead of Whole Paycheck/TJs/Target.

What I really miss is California, where I can buy hard alcohol at the grocery store.

Sometimes what we want can only be found in our local grocery store. Some are great and have well informed staff and some are sad, carrying only generic brands. I go to wine shops and pick up at grocery stores.

It is so annoying to have lived in a state (Washington) that I could pick up a bottle of wine at any grocery store or Target for that matter - and on a sunday even! - only to move to a state (Minnesota) where I have to go to a liquor store. And make sure I have the wine I want for sunday's dinner Saturday.

I really think that every state should allow beer and wine to be sold at grocery stores. Having said that, I would honestly still go to the liqour store, too, to buy wine. Especially if I want a variety greater than your typical Cabs, Merlots, Pinots, etc. that grocery stores typically stock - the exception perhaps being TJ. I certainly don't find French Roses at the grocery store when I go home to visit the fam. Plus, I've noticed the price differences are not that significant. I also like talking to people at the liquor store about what pairs well with my goat cheese pizza. They would definitely still get my business.

i live in florida where wine can be sold anywhere unless you're in a dry county. i can even get an $8 bottle of passable pinot grigio at my corner quick stop!

but i think this leads to an overwhelming amount of underwhelming (and just plain bad) wine.

before whole foods came to town, if you wanted a tasty, unique bottle of wine at a good, fair price you went to the liquor store chain or independent wine shop. at the grocery you could only get the standard yellow tail chard or mark west pinot or even a bottle of moet. not bad choices, just not what i'm looking for when i want a spend money on a bottle of wine.

but now that we have a whole foods (and recently a fresh market opened), there is a better, more unique selection throughout the area because the grocery store chain, liquor store chain AND independent wine shops have had to keep up with WFs selection and price. the independent wine shop downstairs from my husband's office has started offering 20 wines under $20 with regularly rotating stock, they'll crack *any* bottle for a taste and they offer a discount of you buy 6 bottles or more. the local grocery chain and liquor chain now offer a discount for multiple bottles and always have "specialty" wines on sale.

so, thanks whole foods for giving me more choices! but i still prefer to go to the independent wine shop.

Pennsylvania is the worst--you can only buy wine at state run stores operated by the liquor control board. You can't buy beer at the same place. I think the available quality tends to be high, but the prices are quite high. We pick it up in New Jersey when we can.

In California, as mentioned, you can buy all types of alcohol in grocery stores. And, surprise! We still have terrific liquor stores and wine boutiques. In fact, I think it provides incentive for liquor stores to stock better and more interesting wines. Competition is good for business, people. I think it's pretty lame that the only (real) argument against selling liquor in grocery stores is that liquor stores might go out of business.

All that stuff about corrupting young kids ("They'll see liquor in the grocery store!") is pretty ridiculous, too.

You're right Forthright, PA is a pain. Although, that said, we moved to PA from North Carolina, where we had lived in a dry county. Had to drive over the state border to Tennessee to by anything (legally!), a 45 minute drive.
I'm all for buying alcohol in the supermarket.

Most of the time I buy wine in grocery stores (whole food and trader joe's). It's very convinient.

I've lived in CA, WA, TX and PA --- and they rank in that order as far as alcohol goes.

Like others have said, California is the best -- you can get everything at the grocery stores, but they still have nice shops for special and unique wines and liquors.

Washington you have to go to the liquor store, which is a bummer, but you can still pick up a bottle of 2 buck chuck at trader joes if you need to.

Texas is ok, and is set up like Washington -- except that it is riddled with dry and semi-dry counties. My county is semi-dry so I can pick up a bottle of wine or a case of beer anywhere from 7-11 to the snooty wine and cheese shop, but I have to drive 30 minutes to the next county for bourbon.

Pennsylvania is terrible. Nothing at the grocery store, and you have to buy liquor and wine at one store, and beer at another. High prices.

I don't drink any less or more in any of the states I've lived in with the various laws. And it didn't corrupt me as a kid to see alcohol in the grocery store. It was normal, and it wasn't like there were winos hanging outside Kroger. Seeing my parents be responsible drinkers had a lot more influence than anything else. Prohibition ended a long time ago -- just sell it where people want to buy it! The market will find an equilibrium, and the independent liquor stores will do what they've done in states like California.

Here in Boston, I find that I frequent lots of different shops to buy wine: Best Cellars; our locally-owned and operated neighborhood store (ODB, heh); gourmet shops such as Cardullo's; and the bigger package stores in our area (Brookline Liquor Mart, Marty's). I like knowing that a predictable, standard selection is available at TJ's and Shaw's, and I really enjoy buying wine at both places, but I also enjoy going out of my way for a special purchase or in hunt of a new "find."

In short, the process exactly mirrors how I buy food; I may buy the bulk of my food at the regular ol' grocery store, but it's so much fun to go to the farmer's market, Cardullo's, and to get a Boston Organics box that I'd never stop frequenting the smaller retailers just because I live near a Stop N' Shop.

I really have mixed feelings on this one. As a New Yorker, we probably have somewhat unique experiences with grocery stores / wine shops. I'm not likely to pick up a bottle of wine with my groceries if I have to carry them home. It's not really much more convenient for me to throw it in my cart. If I'm not buying much, it's not hard to stop by the local wine shop on my way home. So the convenience argument doesn't seem that strong.

From a policy perspective, I think saving liquor stores is a weak point. However, I do think the current set-up encourages greater diversity of selection, and I have learned so much about wine from interacting with shop owners who personally select their inventory. While I know I could choose to continue to patronize the independent shops, I worry that if they lost any amount business, they would have to close. So many other local shops have folded recently because they can't support the real estate costs.

I've lived in several states too --
Missouri -- where you can buy anything at the grocery store or the gas station even
Kentucky -- the county I lived in was "moist" and you could buy drinks at restaurants and bars, but anything packaged you would have to go to another county (or state) to buy wine/beer/liquor.
Pennsylvania -- like it's been said - beer at one store, wine and liquor at another, total pain if you need more than one option

When I lived in TX, I often bought wine in the grocery store, but if I wanted to try something new or different, I'd go to the liquor/wine store. Now that I live in TN, we can't buy wine in the grocery store. I truly believe that if we were able to buy wine in grocery stores, I would still frequent individual wine/liquor stores if I were looking for something special or different as most of the ones I frequent are very knowledgable and helpful.
Now if only we could get all those sin taxes reduced so that alcohol is cheaper!

As far as the "best choice" - it all depends on the supermarket.

Here in VA, Giant & Safeway are somewhat spotty - it really depends on the location as to how good the wine department is.

Then you've got Wegman's with it's own big honking wine shop which is far and away the best as far as supermarkets go.

I buy both at the market and one of the independent wine shops. At the market, it's usually a bottle or two of something I know, and the wine shop, it's a mixed case of standards and new wines - the owner and I play, "What do you think I'd like?" and you really can't get that at the markets.

Wow, this is interesting. I'd never thought about these issues before -- good post.

I used to live in Cambridge, MA and would moan about how ridiculous it was that we couldn't buy wine on Sunday, or in the grocery store (though you could at the TJ's for whatever reason, but not on Sunday). I had a fantastic wine store, though, (Wine and Cheese Cask...tell me it's still there) that offered a great selection of really inexpensive and interesting wines in addition to high end stuff. Now I live in California, and while I love having wine available everyday in the grocery store, I do miss having a good wine store that was motivated to provide interesting picks under $10. The wine stores around me seem to be aiming exclusively for the high end buyer. Not sure if this is due to the influence of grocery stores -- or if it's just my Wine Cask nostalgia -- but it is a bummer.

I'd say your title question, "do supermarkets offer the best choice?" can be met with a corollary, "do wine shops/alcohol-specific retailers offer the best choice?" In both cases, the answer is no, it's highly dependent on where you are and what the general market environment is like.

Like a commenter above, I too moved from a place where you could get wine in a grocery store (Portland, Oregon) to Minneapolis, where it was a shock to not be able to buy wine and beer along with my dinner ingredients, and to (*sob*) not be able to run out on a moment's notice to grab a bottle of something if it's Sunday.

However, I always felt like Portland showed how large retailers could have wine/beer for sale, while small specialty shops thrived and remained competitive. It wasn't just because big grocers weren't stocking anything drinkable so wine shops would pick up the slack, in fact, I've had fabulous experiences with wine stewards at stores like Fred Meyer that would carry a nice depth and breadth of selection at decent prices.

And for every store like that, there's another of the same size that carries cases of loss-leading plonk. Of course, for every awesome super-knowledgeable well-stocked independent wine merchant, there are ones where you question how they remain in business. It's a spectrum, always.

Would supermarkets and wine shops be able to coexist in other markets? It's hard to say, but it seems like up and down the West Coast no one is complaining, merchants or customers. Personally, now that I am going without the ability to choose where I'm going to buy my wine (unless it's between the liquor store down the street or the specialty wine shop 8 miles away), it makes me appreciate having had the freedom to buy it virtually anywhere before.

I live in Wisconsin where you can buy all types of alcohol in grocery stores. My experience is similar to one noted above. Some grocery stores stock basic items that they feel will move with no staff expertise per se. Others carry a wider selection and have decent knowledgable staff to help.

What I like the most is that different stores either work w different distributors or have different purchasing philosophies and so one gets to see a wider range of available product.

In my opinion trying to protect a certain segment of the supply chain from some other group through legislation is wrong. All should have the opportunity to compete. Mayb e its the a little more difficult , but competition to be meaningful is not meant to be easy. It is meant to have people do their best to convince a potential buyer that their place of business is where one should buy a particular item.

I work for a wine wholesaler, We're very small and focus on small vineyards and producers from around the world.
you can find us in a handful of chain grocery stores, but the main problem is that they are only a few stores interested in pleasing the customer, most of them are interested in kickbacks from the big distributors.
Even then you can go to some stores and find some very good selections at extremely reasonable prices, usually those stores are stocked very well thanks to their wine managers who try to fight the corporate suits.
also in our area the way the stores stocks their wine correlates not to the taste of the customers but to their wallets.

and i forgot. most chain stores rarely have someone available to guide you to the right wine as opposed to a small independent store where the shop people not only know the wine, have tasted it, but probably know a lot more about the trade.

I moved to rural NY from California last fall, and the change in liquor laws was one of the most difficult adjustments.

Despite the fact that every small town has it's own liquor and wine store, there's no variety between the different shops. It's the same pallets of Yellow Tail, Barefoot, and Mondavi, along with a smattering of the undrinkably sweet local wines (to be fair, I think some of those may come into their own when summer finally hits).

If supermarkets could sell wine, I'm sure Wegmans (which manages to stock a great range of beers) would blow these little hole-in-the-wall booze shops out of the water. And it would be awesome.