Wine in groceries yet?
What is a farm winery?
No wine in grocery stores yet …
A farm winery can sell wine from production under 50,000 gallons IIRC of wine a year …
New York Farm Winery Act of 1976
Nope. Major grocery stores (thinking Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and Eataly) usually have a wine shop next door. And no cross-mixing with beer. You have to draw the line somewhere!
You mean a wine shop can’t sell beer? Can they sell spirits? WTF?!?!?
Yeah, it’s wine and spirits in one category and beer in another! Makes sense, right?
So where do you buy beer, the grocery store? If so, what’s the selection like? Are there dedicated beer geek stores?
Thanks goodness beer is kept separate from wines and spirits. Imagine the anarchy and chaos that would ensue if you allowed people to buy a couple oftheir favourite craft beers along with a bottle of wine for dinner.
Duh, obviously. Selection seems fine to me but I’ve never really bought much beer in NYC. I don’t know if there are dedicated beer geek stores but it would not surprise me.
I have a hard time imagining a chain supermarket stocking Cantillon, Old Traquair House or Rodenbach, let alone über dry hopped IPAs that need to be FRESH.
Not so much in Manhattan, but Westchester County has a chain of grocery stores called DeCicco’s which have an unbelievable beer selection (their newly opened flagship store even has a wraparound bar with over 20 taps, a pizza oven & an indoor bocce court).
This is a shot of the beer aisle of the DeCicco’s in my former town: http://www.sowestchester.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Pelham-Beer-Aisle.jpg
Oh and yeah, the biggest beer store in the country opened up about 2 months ago here as well.
My understanding is that it has nothing to do with the type of beverage, but rather the alcohol level. Anything above 6% must be sold in a liquor store. Anything under 6% can be sold with a lesser license which grocery stores and even 7/11 type stores can get. So in grocery stores, you can buy “low alcohol” wine as well as beer.
In addition to groceries, beer is sold by “beverage centers” which typically sell soda and mineral water by the case as well as beer. These places tend to have a big selection of high end beer. One near here even sells gluten free beers that they make themselves. One had a beer so special that a member here asked me to pick it up and ship it to him.
I don’t think this is correct. Plenty of grocery stores and beverage centers sell beer that is over 6%. No matter the alcohol - beer, “malt beverages”., etc I’ve only seen in grocery store and similar licenses. Wine (including Essencias that are under 6%), cider, spirits, sake- only wine stores.
Cider is sold in grocery stores, but you are right there must be a clause about beer of any strength.
Here are the definitions of the various licenses from the horse’s mouth:
http://www.sla.ny.gov/definition-of-license-classes
DRUG STORE BEER: Beer license for off-premises only by bonafide pharmacies (take out).
GROCERY STORE BEER: Beer license for off-premises only by bonafide groceries (take out).
GROCERY BEER/WINE PRODUCT: Off-premises beer license as listed above, see “Grocery Store Beer”. Additionally a “wine product” is defined as a beverage containing wine with added juice, flavoring, water, citric acid, sugar and carbon dioxide, not containing more than six percent alcohol by volume (typically referred to as “wine coolers”).
LIQUOR STORE: For the sale of liquor and wine (no beer) for consumption off the premises. The only additional items allowed to be sold, such as ice and corkscrews, are listed in the ABC Law. Only one license is allowed per person (corporation, partnership, etc.).
Cider’s also sold in wine shops. Perhaps cider transcends all boundaries.
Being from a state with pretty liberal alcohol laws (CA), it’s strange being in a state with generally more restrictive alcohol laws (NY) and seeing growlers being filled from tap handles in beverage shops. Very much not legal in CA. In fact, breweries aren’t supposed to fill you a growler here if it doesn’t have their logo on it.
Grocery stores here have gone big on this.
This subject is complicated in NY.
There is nothing logical about the separation of who can sell beer, wine or spirits. It’s all about the political clout and access of wholesalers–beer protecting its, wine and spirits protecting its, politicians feeding at the trough.
As for the “new” treatment of beer–and distilled spirits–the governor has opened those two product markets in a similar way that the 1976 Farm Winery Act opened markets to smaller wineries. Before '76, there were no tasting rooms in NY and there was no direct winery access to consumers.
All of the so-called “farm” legislation applies to production maximums: the original 50,000 gallons for wine has been raised to 150,000 gallons. I have no idea what the limits on beer or distilled spirits are, but when a producer is under the limit, its beer and distilled drinks can be tasted in tasting rooms, poured from taps, and so on–and the producers are allowed to operate multiple tasting rooms within the state.
That wine still cannot be sold in grocery stores remains strictly a political/access issue. There’s big money at the wholesaler level and it flows both ways.