Total Wine Selection Question

Does anyone have any insight into the variation in selection between Total Wine stores in the same general market? I’ll find relatively close stores carry the same wine, but different vintages.

Thanks,

Lonnie

Different wines but similar vintages. neener

Well, Lonnie… I’m not sure, but here inNM we only have 2 TW in two different markets.
But my impression, from talking to several of their associates, is that for each store the buying decisions are made at the corporate level and that individual managers don’t have a lot of say so.
Most of the wines go thru Saranty Imports, which is controlled/owned by TW.
Here in NM, they have set up their own distributor that sells only to TW. This is totally illegal, but they get away with it. So a big truck comes rolling into NM, they stop in Albq, shuffle off some paperwork, then deliver directly to the two TW stores. Again not really legal.
I seldom find much of interest at TW. When I see Saranty Imports ( the “Direct Import” labels), I usually don’t buy. Many of their wines are just made-up names and not real properties in Europe.
But it’s a highly profitable business model.
Tom

I usually think of TW as an excellent place to get a good price on mediocre large production wines.

FWIW…they are one of the best for en primeur purchases…very reliable, convenient and 50% upon ordering, 50% at arrival

Generally run rates vary by store. Since their priority is PL wines, some of the national brands linger depending on location.

Bump the dock is a lot more common practice than you may know, while it can or can’t cut out a tier or 2, its perfectly legal unless a State has a statute regarding it or at rest. Many companies pay “invasion” fees for bump the dock items to distributors or suppliers.

Do you get TW points for en primeur purchases?

I’m not sure how long they are going to get away with it. Southern Glaser and Fiasco are both considering lawsuits to stop this illegal practice. I don’t buy from Total Wine for any reason. When I lived in Virginia, I thought their business practices were hinky and they only seem to be getting worse,

NM does have a provision that blocks this but it is not enforced.

I have, may depend on state laws though (I’m in Washington State).

I believe hey do this, or a form of it, in Maryland as well. What always amazed me is the hundreds if not thousands of wine I had zero interest in buying. It’s funny to see Bevan Cellars in their glass case.

A long time ago the store in Maryland had a malfunction in one of the huge glass door coolers. The next day lots of the wines were dripping due to the heat. The wines they could clean up without stains went back into the case when they repaired it. Told to me by an ex-employee at the time.

Is it a provision against bump the dock or is it a product at rest provision?

This is (or was) about the only value I got out of TW. They have had excellent, often market best, prices for futures and the 50% down aspect made them less of a risk. You can sometimes find other good values, especially with their occasional 20% off coupons, but not really enough to make it worthwhile to shop there with any regularity

I usually think of TW as an excellent place to get a good price on mediocre large production wines.

Several places in Minneapolis offer even better prices on those mediocre wines. When they arrived they offered good prices to lure the customer in and now they are about average pricing in town.

I don’t buy en primeur (don’t drink that much Bordeaux), but Bordeaux is their only area with a good or even decent selection. I bought some on coupons before the tariffs, but doesn’t have many other reasons to browse outside the rare exception. I found a few bottles of a decent vintage of Musar (2002), but I could have found that elsewhere.

-Al

Their selection was better when the economy was in ‘recovery’ mode 5 or more years ago. That speaks to how they secure a lot of their wines. They also don’t send any 20% off coupons out around here these days.

If this year’s economy drags things as hard as it might you will likely see better things at better prices again at TW again in the next couple years.

I’ve noticed the same in the SMF area too.

TW are handy in that will recycle styro shippers, if anyone still gets those.

Nowadays most of my stuff seems to come in compressed/tough cardboard though.

They still send a lot of coupons by snail mail to me (I unsubbed from their emails getting tired of their Tibetan luxe cabernet offers, yes for real) and I don’t think I’ve used one in years. There are so many constraints on the coupon that is impossible to really get anything out of it. At least they are cheap for beer (with a vast selection) for the few times a year I need to pick up some.

One thing our local store does NOT seem to do: offer any bin ends, closeouts of any kind on wine. I find that a little surprising, just about every wine store usually has a few times a year where the purge the stragglers, or a bucket somewhere with sluggish items. They do seem to sell other stuff for cheap periodically (strange beers, mini liquors etc.) but not their 6 year old bojo on the shelf that just keeps festering. Where does it all end up?

So true - I was just thinking the other day that it had been a LONG time since I’ve seen a 20% off coupon (which is really the only time I shop there). All I get are 15% off case purchases. No thanks.

Sometime in the past couple weeks I received an emailed $100 off $500+ for wine. Can’t remember the exclusions. Coupon still valid.

My wine purchases at TW literally dropped to 0 after their tariff price hikes. Said price increases, coupled with a significantly-reduced coupon program, simply make it economically unwise to purchase from them.

Still great for beer, though.