I agree completely. The widespread distaste is strange to me as they have plenty of excellent wines and a great selection of high end wines in the reserved/cooler section. Sure, they don’t have small production, boutique wines, but that doesn’t mean their selection is poor. Their prices are also pretty fair.
All depends on your other options. I’ve sold to them but never bought from them. Then again, that’s only east coast.
Still, never been tempted to go into one as a customer if I’m going to have to pay standard retail prices for widely-available wine.
Part of the distaste, I think, is that Total is seen as the Wal-Mart of the wine retail world. Big, heavily capitalized, major advertiser . . . it has the tendency to crush small local wine shops in its path. And lots of people here either own, work for, or are close to those local wine shops.
Given a choice between a locally owned reliable wine shop and Total (which actually is locally owned for me) I would rather pick the little guy, but (a) I am generally not willing to pay a significant premium for that privilege and (b) when I was in the futures game, and having learned the PC lesson, I would not pay 100% down for bdx futures when a 50% option (with a large well-capitalized firm) is available.
These days I’m mostly buying champagne (where Total is not strong and their coupons don’t apply) or back vintages (which Total does not really offer), so I don’t do a hell of a lot of business with them. But they got a sizable percentage of my (relatively small) 2014 bdx purchases. Good prices, and 15% off on in-stock wines. Hard to beat.
I am not Total Wine shopper mainly because they damage the local shops who can’t compete on the prices. The few times I have been in, the selection really wasn’t all that good other than Bordeaux and some California wines. Someone mentioned German poor selection but Austria also poorly represented.
John Glas wrote:
The only thing I purchase there is the wines Morelli’s offers in St. Paul since Total Wine will match their price and take a credit card. I find total wine is terrible on any wine over $35. Under that price point they are competitive in Minneapolis/ St. Paul.
So Interesting to me to hear these kind of stories, as its night/day difference to what I experience here in AZ. Sure they have TONS of lower priced/grocery story type wines…but they also have an incredible selection of higher-end, and even relatively difficult to find bottles. In my opinion they are by far strongest in CA and France (Bordeaux in particular), and their every day pricing is strong. But as others have mentioned, when you factor in the 15% and 20% coupons, there’s some awesome deals to be had for even the most discerning wine buyer.
For those of you that unfortunately struggle to find berserker-type bottles at your local TW locations, do they have glass cases in the front? Even at the worst TW location here in AZ (as I mentioned earlier, selection varies widely between locations), you can find a gem or two in the glass cases.
Your telling me no one in your region beats them on price? I have a half dozen places in the Twin Cities with 20% or more off their prices on higher end wine.
[quoteCostco beats on price much of the time IIRC, but I go to other wine stores more for interesting selection than pricing.
If I was a pure supermarket wine shopper, I would have zero reason to go anywhere else.][/quote]
Once Total wine arrive in MN Costco stepped up their game and lowered their prices.
those reasons you listed initially are exactly why I don’t like Total Wine and others like BevMo. Hypocritical I suppose since I do like big corporate chains like Costco which may have similarly deleterious effects on local competition, but like others mentioned, Costco does what it does and doesn’t pretend to be what it isn’t, in terms of broad/interesting selection, etc. In the end, like with many other socioeconomic issues across the country these days, everyone has a different decision tree/breaking point in deciding where to draw the line… I just hope that people continue to support their local wine shops, even if it does mean paying a little more here and there (some of the guys in my tasting group joke about “sympathy purchases,” etc. lol).
I work per diem at a local wine shop in a fly over state (NE) but there comes a point when economics takes over. I can get many wines where I work at the low side of Wine Searcher, although this is only via my 20% employee discount. I’ve spent the last month in Las Vegas and visited every TW here. The pricing is fantastic compared to similar selections in NE. And they have many things we don’t get. I bought 3 bottles of Yquem while here at prices that were the lowest on Wine Searcher.
I can certainly respect those who won’t support a retailer like Total and would prefer to give their money to the local shop on the corner.
My grandparents raised 5 kids during the Depression living over their neighborhood grocery. A&P came in and put the corner grocery out of business. I remember the outrage of a sizable portion of the US population when people started buying Toyotas, but they were cheap and reliable machines and Detroit was producing crap. Someone offers a better product, or a better price, or both, and you are going to get crushed. It is the way of the world, and has been for time immemorial.
I buy new release Bordeaux at TW because no local even is close on pricing (often 30% higher). But there seems to be a lot of opportunity for locals - my TW has no almost German wines, a weak Burgundy selection, Northern Rhone is strictly limited to Delas/Chapoutier/Guigal, Piedmont is hit or miss and everything is recent vintage. It makes sense for TW’s business model, but at the same time, I can’t understand why none of the locals (other than Panzer, who doesn’t run a brick and mortar) try to offer a different experience. As much as I’d like to support them, they aren’t making a compelling case.
That is the key. For all the romantic nostalgia for “Mom and Pop” stores who were replaced by the likes of Home Depot and Walmart, in reality the vast majority of those stores were simply local monopolies which at best were not doing a good job of serving their customers, and at worst were actively exploiting them.
Thanks to the 3 tier system, that reality is still all too prevalent in the LWS world. Too many shops just take what the distributor dumps on them, or focus narrowly on the flavors of the month without putting any effort into creating a quality selection. I’m glad I have TWS as an alternative to those. Meanwhile, the local store near me that does offer a well chosen and interesting selection gets a lot more of my business than Total ever will.
I’ll also say that the TWS store near me in Westbury does do a much better job of serving their core customers than most of the competition, though on Long Island at least that is a low bar. I have friends and relatives who shop there, and the suggestions they get from the sales people are quite sound given their preferences.
I’ve been following Total Wine from the very start, as Tom Hill would say. In my case, it’s literal - I was there on opening day in the original Chantilly, VA store when it was owned by the Haft family, before it was bought by the Trones.
Total is never going to be the first store of choice for most on this board. I would also never shop there without the omnipresent coupons. If you know your local store’s inventory and shop wisely, though, they often have better prices than anywhere else. For example, this week I picked up a Quinta do Vale Meao for less than I saw it in Porto a week earlier. The inventory varies by location, but they get some things that other shops in the area may not.
Those who think they are killing off mom and pop shops have to really look at the numbers. Close to half of the wine bought in the US is bought in grocery stores or stores like Wal-Mart. Independent shops have always had to offer something more to get people in the door. It can be individual service, more interesting selections, tastings, newsletters, whatever. That doesn’t change because Total moves into an area. While the DC area/Northern Virginia is not a typical wine market, more wine shops have opened since Total entered the market than have closed (hell, one even opened directly across the street from Total). Some haven’t made it, but that likely had nothing to do with Total.
Remember, also, that things can change for “category killers.” Remember when Border’s killed off locally owned book stores. Or Best Buy killed local audio and electronics stores. It didn’t help Borders and we’ll see what happens to Best Buy. The market for wine is different because of regulation but the markets are constantly changing in everything.
Bottom line, Total might not be for you but it provides a service for wine geeks and non-geeks alike.
(On the original point, I don’t see the rewards changes as really changing much of anything.)
Lee, I like Panzer’s portfolio but for a brick and mortar shop, have you been to Swigg? Nice guy and a nice shop. Frank’s wine has a good selection, too, but you have to wait until he runs a 15-20% sale for them to be cost competitive.