Boulder CO wine shops

Any that you can recommend?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Doug

Doug,
NoBrainer…Boulder Wine Merchant on Broadway & Alpine stands heads & shoulders above the rest.
The LiquorMart is very large/competitive pricing, but the selection is not as interesting.
For a restaurant, Frasca has a monumental wine list. BobbyStuckey’s restaurant. Right next door is
PizzeriaLocale which is terrific pizza. And you can order from the Frasca wine list.
And just across/down the street from Frasca is Cured. Tiny wine shop, but often some very good things.
And they’re the best cheese source in Boulder. Avoid the salamis, though. They leave them out
on this marble slab and they’re oftentimes very dried out.
Tom




I agree with Tom on Boulder Wine merchant and Frasca. I’ve had good luck at Daveco out in Thornton off of I-25, but it’s been a few years since I’ve visited my dad.

Don’t waste time with Daveco anymore. The really nice wine room is basically empty of any decent wines. Total Beverage in Westminster, a few blocks north on Sheridan Blvd off Hwy 36 they have more option. Also add Superior Liquors off Hwy 36 and McCaslin Blvd. Both are on the drive up to Boulder.

Thanks for the heads up. That’s too bad, I know at one point they had someone steal quite a few bottles out of the wine room. I used to be able to buy Ridge MB and Billecart Salmon for great prices there.

I am partial to West End Wine Shop for non-baller French, Spanish, Italian and California wines. More of a neighborhood feel. B-Town has some interesting selections although not a huge inventory. Cured is a good recommendation for AFWE, especially if you need a picnic spread (charcuterie and cheese). I’ve always felt like Boulder Wine Merchant is like a secret club, but I don’t live in Boulder so maybe they can tell I’m not a card-carrying member of the People’s Republic (of Boulder).

another great list is at Flagstaff House.

It was a great list when I lived there forty years ago!!!

I can also rec the Boulder Wine Merchant. Liquor mart is quite large but can still find some well chosen stuff in there. Frasca is easily the best restaurant and as noted, the next door Pizzaria Locale is very good.

I last went to Flagstaff House about 10 years ago. It has the best views so tourists flock there. The food can be excellent for simply good as Chefs seemed to change quite a bit. They had a huge list and like still do. But after my last time there I never went back. They had a 15 yr old leflaive white burg. It was village I think. So I asked if it was bad could I send it back and the sommelier said no. That was the end of wine ordering there for me.

Thanks to all! This is great.

Cheers,
Doug

My 0.02…
Boulder Wine Merchant is expensive. Exceedingly so.
Liquor Mart is a shell of its former glory. It just seems to be dying a slow death.

Setting those aside, I would recommend the following lap.
Total Beverage in Thorton is great.
Hazel’s on 28th has taken over as the big store in town to go to. Great walk in cellar with a bunch of interesting things throughout.
Cured. Smallest Liquor store in Colorado. Will has a lot of thoughtful selections across the price spectrum and his staff is knowledgable. Grab a sandwich for lunch.
Superior Liquor right off 36 at the Superior exit is ok. Would de-prioritize against the previous three.


Frasca is tops if you are into Italian wine. Plenty of other stuff, but would focus your attention there. If you just want Pizza and the same wine list, go next door to Locale.

We have a love/hate relationship with Flagstaff House. Some of the best tables in Boulder if you dine outside or on a window. Wine list is awesome…got us into the crack that it White Burgundy. The somms have been there for a long time and do a good job of keeping the list stocked. Food can be hit or miss. Service can be atrocious as they tend to put a bunch of college kids in dress up clothes. “Free dessert” does not make the situation any better. As such, our last visit soured us for a while. Conversely, we’ve had some very memorable times there when things are all clicking.

Plenty or other good restaurants with decent lists. Oak, Arcana, and Corrida (Top Floor of a building, from down town it is the opposite perspective from the Flagstaff house.). Or go to the Rio and get blitzed on Tequila and Margs.

Many thanks for this. Will definitely take a look.

Cheers,
Doug

Hmmmm…BWM uses essentially the same markup as the LM or any other wine shops in Denver/Boulder. I’ve price-compared on dozens of different wines.
BWM appears very expensive because they bring in a lot of wines that are frightfully difficult to source or nobody else is savvy enough to bring in, other than BobbyStuckey. And those wines are often on the expensive side. But the BWM’s markup is on the norm.
I’ve never been impressed by any TotalWines I’ve been in…though never been in the Thornton one. They have a very large wine selection… of commodity wines. Want a ButterKnife Chard?? TW will have it. The do a lot of DI’s of labels you don’t recognize… wines nobody else will have… because they are made-up names they’ve created for their DI’s. They’re generally pretty cheap… but most I’ve tried are poor values. And the TW markup is not particularly low. Just not a fan at all of TW.
Tom

I was impressed by the selection at Hazel’s. Cured is a small but terrific store. BWM is very good as well, and as to its pricing I agree with Tomas analysis.

I am not sure Total Beverage is under the Total Wine umbrella. First, the names are different. Second, apparently CO law has some strange rules about the number of doors a business can sell booze under. For example, I think there is only one TJs and one Costco in the entire state that can sell alcohol. Might be changing because the owners of Total Beverage in Thorton actually have a second store else where in CO. They originally kept owner ship split between two different family members. While I’ve never been to a Total Wine, I think that Total Beverage is a pretty good store.

Both Total Beverages are now under the same umbrella since the new laws took effect. No affiliation with Total Wine. Both store have decent inventory, though the Westminster one would be best for anyone heading to Boulder. The Thornton store is my normal stop as its a few minutes from my house.
Superior Liquor by no means is as good as TB, they have a few allocated bottles that I am always surprised to see when I venture in.

Me bad…Total Beverage is not the same as Total Wine. Didn’t catch the name difference there. I’ll check out Total Beverage when I’m up there next month.
Tom

Micheal, I’ve actually never been to the Thornton store, only the Westminster one. I should have caught that for clarity sake. Westminster is closer to Boulder.

Also, there are now 5 or 6 Costco’s that can sell wine. Ft Collins (Timnath) and Denver (Quincy) are the closest. Both about 45 minutes to an hour from Boulder.