Minneapolis Wine Store Recos

Hi all -

Moving to Minneapolis from SF and looking for recommendations on good local wine shops. Thanks for any insight.

Near the cities South Lyndale Liquors is probably the way to go. East of the cities Sunfish Cellars has good stuff. Downtown Henry & Sons has interesting choices (They stock D&R, Cruse, etc). West of the cities for collectables would be the Liquor Barn which has Myriad, Quivet, Realm, Saxum, etc.

Jake has some good suggestions. Surdyk’s in NE Mpls. is also quite good.

Would be remiss not to mention Surdyk’s just north of downtown, Cork Dork in S. Minneapolis, and amid the barren wastelands to the east of Minneapolis there lies Solo Vino, with a nice esoteric selection and like 50 roses.

Great, thank you everyone. Much appreciated.

Despite not being from Minneapolis, I have been very well served by Sunfish Cellars, located in what I assume is a suburb, Lilydale.

Others:
Thomas Liquors in St Paul.
Wine Streets in North Oaks. (Brad can run some interesting e-mail specials)
Hennepin Lake Mpls
Not sure when you are arriving, but Surdyks and Thomas usually have their Spring sales the beginning of March, with South Lyndale towards the end of the month.

They did tell you about the weather, didn’t they? You know how people say that SF can get really chilly?

LOL Neal - yes I am aware I grew up in the Midwest and heading back after 20 years in SF (even I can admit SF folks are a bit soft regarding the weather).

Being from MN, I still have to that the coldest I’v ever been was standing on the beach near Golden Gate Park on a damp, windy, Fall afternoon wearing a fully insulated ski jacket. Brutal.

Ron, that is the truth. Everyone laughs when I say it gets cold here but its true - it is a different wet kind of cold…

I haven’t been there in person, but had good experiences ordering from Sunfish in St Paul. They have Clos Saron, must be at least pretty legit.

Do any Berserkers convene to open bottles in Minneapolis? I’m out there quarterly for business. The restaurants have been great.

It seems to me a big problem here is that we are very slow getting the latest releases. Whatever: I’ll second what others have said.The better stores are Surdyks (for their sales,) South Lyndale, Hennpin-Lake, Sunfish.

Yes, like Chris says, if there are any meet-ups I would love to join.

Surprised that no one has mentioned the good guys at Haskell’s!

One that I like is France/44 in Edina, corner of 44th St and France Av. Good selection of U.S. wines. Hennepin-Lake used to run some good Champagne sales, especially near the holidays. I’ve never been to Thomas but have heard good things. On my last trip, I hit S. Lyndale and it was pretty good. Bought a lot at Surdyk’s, but not lately. Steve Westby, winemaker in Oregon (Witness Tree?) used to work there.

Most of the key stores have been touched on here. A lot depends on what types of wine you are looking for. I frequent most of these stores depending on what I am looking for. One of the great things is recently we have been getting a ton of the “new california” stuff that was previously mailing list only or only available on the coast. Lots of Clos Saron around, Matthiasson, Arnot Roberts, Wind Gap, Dirty Rowdy, etc.

The two stores I frequent most are Sunfish and Solo Vino. Some that havent been mentioned at 1010 Washington (good store if you are staying by downtown), Zipps has a good selection, Lake wine and spirits, North Loop has some interesting things, Top Ten Woodbury location always has great stuff during their sale, Bright Wines in Maplewood is very small but Dave has some gems at times during his sales, Lakeside wine in Long Lake has interesting stuff.

Haskell’s has several retail outlets in the Twin Cities – Minneapolis, St. Paul and other suburbs, with the largest being in Minnetonka, MN where their warehouse. They have about the best selection, especially in old world wines, but pricing is very high. That said, “best selection” in the Twin Cities isn’t saying a lot, as the entire metro area can be a wine wasteland for some wines – like grower Champagnes or Northern Rhones. Welcome to the cold!

Yeah, I have to put in another vote for Sunfish as it is my local bar and wine shop. They have a nice little wine bar, very good shop, and conduct a lot of interesting classes. I’ve seen a fair amount of producer tastings that have been really good.

k.

Twin Cities actually has a ton of places with good selection of grower champagne. And yes Northern Rhone is not great anywhere but you could say that just about everywhere in the country these days. Sunfish has a good selection of some of the Rosenthal portfolio.

My issue with Haskells is their higher end stuff has sat around on the shelves for years. And yes their prices leave ALOT to be desired.

Where would those grower champagne retailers be??