I could care less about the knowledge of the staff. I go there looking for good prices on classified growth Bordeaux. Whether the salesperson knows how St. Julien performed in the '10 vintage for instance is of little interest to me.
Tom
TW has a niche and it is pretty easy to exploit. First make sure you sign up on the email list, very few emails and every 4-6 weeks they send a good coupon. As for the pricing, as an earlier post said, look at the bottom shelf. All wines ending in a 7 (39.97 vs 39.99) are loss leaders and are on more popular “housewife shopping” wines. Example is KJ Grand Reserve at $13.97 or Jordan at 44.97, and coupons exclude all wines ending in a 7.
I use TW for good prices on the $25-$45 napa cabs. With coupons of 10-15% off I buy: Whitehall Lane, Honig, Hall, Paul Hobbs Crossbarn, Robert Craig Affinity, and Chappellet Signature.
I’ve heard that as well about loss leaders. Especially KJ Chardonnay selling at a loss.
Total Wine sounds a lot like Binny’s here. I go to Binny’s for beer and spriits- and the sub $25-$30 bottle of wine. All Binny’s have the “reserve room” but the wines there are usually pretty over priced. They dominate the market- but we do have some great alternatives with some smaller places.
Haven’t seen a discount coupon from them, either by email or in the Sacramento paper, for months - and the stuff that interests me there isn’t worth buying w/o the discount.
I used to buy online from Sam’s before Binny’s swallowed them up. They had some fairly good offerings in grower champagne.
TW is geared more towards the casual wine buyer, not the winegoons. Trust me, most people around here (Sacramento) are going in there and leaving with cases of Coors Light :barfs: but hey maybe they’ll accidentally buy a Siduri someday by accident and become goons too!
I shop at the TW in Roseville (Sacramento, CA ) area about once per month and just run in and grab stuff like Tres Picos and various Spanish/Italian/US sub $25 bottles and various Siduri/Novy or a port (10 year Taylors for $20 can’t be beat). They do have the over $100 bottles in a separate climate controlled area but everything else is exposed to 70 degrees store temperature so load up quick I guess. DEFINITELY see the rating/year/vintage mismatch thing going on…“2010 RP 93!” bin has 40 bottles of the 2008
They don’t have coupon’s anymore but you get a discount if you buy 6 bottles so it is usually a good deal. They have great selections of beer (grabbed cases of Deschutes Red Chair) and booze (always have stuff like Rittenhouse Rye), great prices on Scotch ($62 for Laphraoig 10 year cask) and I also saw yesterday they have all three 7 leguas Tequilas (silver/gold/anejo). NOM
There are really no “locals” to support in suburban megachain mall SUV crowded hellscape America anyway so eff it. Let’s all race to the bottom. However, I do try to buy a few wines down at good old Corti Bros. in downtown Sac when I go down there - and always try to grab some K&L action when I visit my stash at Wine Bank a few times per year.
The one I visit occasionally in Laurel Md has a good selection with prices that all over the place. They do stock my favorite rose so far this year Domaine Fontanyl which I haven’t seen anywhere else in the area.
I have been told that the coupons are a regional thing. With this location being new they typically flood the area with regular coupons. The area you are the TW must be doing pretty well and they don’t feel the need to send anymore coupons.
I guess I fall on the indifferent side of the spectrum. I will often see cheaper prices at my local independent store, but with soooo many bottles in stock, I can almost always find something I want if given the time to browse.
Also, never had the the pushy/no-nothing salesman experience at the Richmond, VA stores.
There’s not a compelling reason for me to shift any business to them because there are a lot of really nice wine stores around me, but if it were between Total and grocery stores, I’d be all over them.
I have also seen some high-end stuff on their weekend tasting line-up before, so that’s always appreciated.
For us it is 12 bottles
and they have to be 750s
and they can’t be Champagne
and all 12 have to be the same wine
TW sucks (at least here)
There are I think four locations of Total Wine around Raleigh and I have been to two of them. I did find some dessert wines I would buy–a nice Sauternes and some Tawny Ports. I now receive their catalog and am considering a French rose’ in the recent publication. Overall, I don’t find much that interests me but I think the inventory varies considerably from one location to another.
Bingo!
And the price can’t end in “7” (at least here)
Seems like Total Wine and Spirits is paying attention. Two weeks ago I got a bottle of 2008 Hoope’s Cab and a 2008 Paradigm Cab.
Both of them shelf priced at $45 before the six bottle discount. I posted on this price as they were the cheapest in the country. I go back on Saturday, and they are both jacked up to $68 a bottle. Hmmmm…
Link to a TW coupon $15 off $100
It was great when we were able to use both this coupon and the 6 bottle discount, but no longer…
I used to make a point to visit the stores in SC and GA when we would go down for visits. Now I pretty much skip them - except for liquor buys where they are quite good.
Too many imported “direct buys” that proved to be mediocre and exorbitant pricing for brand name Bordeaux. Not much selection in the fringe wine regions I enjoy trying.
A local chain with stores in most of the same markets has much better selection and comparable if not better pricing. I look forward to visiting that store
Overheard a customer at Total Wine in Dallas today speaking with the salesman:
Customer: Can you get more of this Bordeaux Superior wine for me, it’s really an outstanding value.
Salesman: Yes, that truly is an incredible wine for the money.
Customer: It’s really misleading, though. You’d think from the label that it’s Bordeaux, but it’s actually a blend. It’s mostly Merlot.
Salesman: Yes, that is a little confusing.
Scott, where do you shop? (I’m referring to local retail in Charleston, not internet sales). We get to Charleston occasionally (used to shop at Green’s when we lived in the area, but we didn’t drink much wine back then).
As bad as Total Wine is, it would be a huge improvement over what we have in KY. I recently drove to the DC area to shop for wine, and one of the places I shopped was the Total Wine in Laurel. I bought a mixed case of stuff I can’t get here, at prices much better than what they would be here, if they were available here. I also bought a couple of cases of mixed wines at MacArthur Beverage (plug for the folks there, very helpful and knowledgeable proprietors).
The Total Wine in Laurel used to be Corridor Wine, and it was more consumer-friendly then; they offered 10% mixed case discounts, and an additional 10% off for ladies on Tuesday, which was handy since my wife worked just down the road.