Despite being a grocery store, the two guys who run the wine department at AJ’s on Central and Camelback are ok; not great, but not horrible; domestic is better than imports
Check out The Wine Store on Camelback and 32nd st. Jordan will take great care of you. Side note, the tavern next store and Tarbells next to that are great spots to eat and have nice wine selections (all owned by Mark Tarbell, who also owns The Wine Store). The tavern is really unique for AZ in that you can buy a bottle at The Wine Store, and bring it over with no corkage (essentially no BYO in AZ so this is pretty sweet).
AZ Wine Co on Scottsdale rd around Thomas has a solid selection and decent prices. Not sure on the ‘personal touch’ aspect but good wines.
Terroir on Scottsdale and Indian Bend is decent, but a distant 3rd and prices are high.
Scottsdale Costco is usually pretty strong (zero personal touch obviously)
And there’s always Total Wine…which honestly has some of the best selection around and competitive prices…but it’s nice to support the local shops when ya can!
Ha! Totally missed your comment on Total Wine and Costco. So I guess you can go ahead and ignore my comments on those places (although sadly TW really does have probably the best selection across the board here in town)
Yeah man, it’s been kinda weak lately. My only thought it because snowbirds leave in the summer so I bet their wine sales go down and they stock accordingly.
Shipping is just fine from November though most of April and maybe a lucky weeks in May. Probably ship 85% of the wine i purchase.
I’ve been in PHX for about 10 yrs now.
80-90% of my wine purchases are shipped in (Crush, Chambers St, WHWC, RWC, direct from CA producers)
The rest is from AZ Wine Co, a new shop in Tempe Bottle Shop 48, that stocks some D&R and an assortment of other goodies, or from AZ producers.
Oh, and when Fry’s has their regular 30% sale and I usually use that to grab some Ridge Geyserville.
It’s been our local for a decade. You should stop in and talk to Andrea about what you like. Going on a Saturday afternoon when they have a tasting can be problematic.