I’m not an expert in this, but I thought the NY regulations required NY retailers to buy from NY licensed distributors, and that even national distributors needed a NY subsidiary for that purpose. That would seem to complicate the task of being able to just transfer inventory from CA to NY.
Anyone know how this actually works?
I also am a regular buyer from K&L (although not so much their regular retail stuff, due the pricing as you mentioned). I don’t have a whole lot of experience with the NYC retailers (although I’ve bought stuff from a few), but in my limited experience I don’t think K&L’s pricing is too out of line with them. None of these guys are fighting to be W-S low from what I can tell.
I wonder if they will start shipping to NJ now? Most wine retailers in NY ship to NJ……
K&L almost never has best pricing on the popular stuff. Where they really shine – price-wise – is with the lesser-known/popular regions and wines. Aside from pricing, K&L is best with selection, website, and customer service.
Fully agree but would also add that their deals are incredible on 1) direct import champagne and 2) anything on the huge weekly insider email.
Won an auction purchase and for the first time had the option to send to NYC will call rare storage. On my invoice it say Park Ave Liquor Shop so there ya go. Really happy to have this option.
Big news: I noticed some wines on K&L’s website today were showing as in stock in NYC so I decided to check whether they can be transferred back and forth. They can! For free no less!
CA → NY
NY → CA
I’m guessing they’re skirting the state laws about selling from in-state distributors by having the shipping done by RareStorage. That way it’s a separate company transferring your personal property.
What did they state is the pickup location? The coming NYC store? Or does RareStorage have a physical presence in NYC? I never really look to buy from K&L so free transport CA → NYC might make me look.
(I would think pickup at the NYC retail store would be dicey. K&L CA hands off to RareStorage and washes hands of the matter. RareStorage delivers to K&L NY basically putting it back in K&L’s hands.)
The pickup locations are listed as the RareStorage at Park Avenue Liquor Shop in Manhattan (K&L’s new location) and the K&L SF store, respectively.
RareStorage at Park Avenue Liquor Shop
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016, USA
Note that it says 21-28 days estimate for transferring from their main warehouse to NYC.
Another interesting prospect on the RareStorage website:
What if you could order from multiple retailers in NYC that offer free or cheap local delivery to RareStorage, and have them all consolidated and shipped free to K&L in SF or vice versa…
I guess if they can make it work legally why not. But chain of custody seems weird to me. Co-location of two entirely separate legal entities? WineBid (755 Skyway Court) and Global Storage Network (759 Skyway Court) at least have different addresses albeit the same “approach.”
I don’t understand the laws about this sort of thing and I don’t really care. Chain of custody? They sound pretty silly, so we should do everything we can to work around them.
I’m guessing there might be some NY distributors that will be salty about K&L essentially cutting them out of importing CA wines, but that’s what you get with the silly multi-tiered alcohol system.
New York retailers always seem to have access to Italian wines that are more difficult to find in CA. I’m hoping this means that K&L will offer some of them in NY in the future and I’ll be able to purchase them and have them transferred for pickup in CA.
A letter from the CEO on the official opening of the NYC store today:
https://onthetrail.klwines.com/on-the-trail-blog/klwines-nyc
This looks very promising. There are two members of the Zacharia family on the leadership team. which is … interesting.
I wonder if they will start shipping wine to NJ (where I live) and other states from the NYC location? Previously with their partnership with Park Ave Liquor Shop, they claimed that they couldn’t ship to NJ, even though lots of other wine shops based in New York ship here with no problem. I know I would buy lots of wine from K&L from both their retail and auction platforms if they would ship to me. I know I could always drive into NYC to pick-up my purchases, but driving 2+ hours each way, plus crazy tolls makes shipping the easy choice……
Care to share more? I’m not sure who this family is.
Zachys
