Moved to the worst state for wine in the US

Just moved to Philadelphia. The wines here are OK at the best, way overpriced and you can’t ship here from out of state. Found someone in New Jersey to help and will ship to them from Calvert Woodley in DC and Chambers Street Wines in NYC. Love the town but they have a long way to go to make winos happy.

Walt, I have a friend who lives in PA and he manages. One good thing about the system is that you can order by searching their catalog online and have that delivered to a particular store. Once in a while, you can find an unusual closeout or something at a good price.

And you could console yourself that New York and New Jersey are across the rivers!

Buy direct from wineries. PA has made that much easier over the last year or so.

Worst for wine purchasing, perhaps, but maybe the best for BYO. It is part of the culture and nearly but not entirely universally available.

Should have mentioned the BYO. It is a great benefit at about 50% of the restaurants.

There are 2 fantastic bottle shops a short drive over the bridge into Marlton NJ. Canal’s Bottle Stop and Wineworks. Worth checking out one day if you’re feeling adventuresome.

Walt, there is a Total Wine just across the border off of I-95 in Delaware.

The Wine Source in Baltimore. A bit of a drive though.

Rob Panzer at Down to Earth wines is a fantastic resource based in Delaware. He offers great smaller production wines from Burgundy, The Rhône and Italy and some other areas.

It’s crazy. I have a customer who told me of PLCB operatives in the parking lots of NJ stores looking for PA plates and following him after he left the store. I think there are now worse states since PA loosened the restrictions on purchasing directly from domestic producers.

VA used to do that in DC. Go have lunch shopping.

If he noticed PA plates leaving the lot behind him, he would go visit a relative nearby in NJ for a couple hours. By then, they had given up.

That was one of my PLCB avoidance tricks.

+1. Both have good to occasionally very good prices.

Welcome to Philly Walt! Also, keep an eye on your local PLCB for the Chairman’s Select wines. Sometimes there are great deals to be had - a couple years ago they had a Produttori Barbaresco for $27. This summer they had a 2004 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard for $99. And the different stores have different quality selection - The Market St and Chestnut St stores are probably the broadest selection wise. (5th st in Queen Village also pretty good).

Wait, back up. Are you telling me that it is (or used to be) illegal for someone from PA to drive to another state, purchase wine, and then bring it back to PA?

Still is.

Wow. What’s the logic? Taxes? Old bootlegging law?

Worse than that, Scott. It was illegal for me to move to PA and bring my cellar with me without an import license from PA. I am glad to have left PA in my rear view mirror many years ago.

Yep, I was raised in the controlled state of PA. We ship wines to customers all over there now. Things have changed.

Yes. You’re not allowed to bring alcohol across state lines typically.

Massachusetts used to do this (and probably still does) with the New Hampshire state liquor stores.