The Incredible Pennsylvania Wine Market!
We no longer sell wine in Pennsylvania but used to sell there years ago.
The state is run by a State Monopoly and there are no private wine shops. Restaurants have to pick up their wines at state liquor stores, just like everyone else.
There is really no one to taste with and no one to sell to if you're selling anything out of the mainstream. The state personnel who decide what to buy are strictly limited in what they can taste, how often, and what they can recommend. It is a civil service run wild.
Today, we received a billback from the state for a bottle of Domaine Arnaud Machard de Gramont Chorey-Les-Beaune 1990. That's right 1990. We haven't worked with that estate since the 1993 vintage!
Arnaud Machard de Gramont of Nuits-St-Georges, Some 17 years after he Bottled the Returned Bottle
The way it works, is that if a consumer decides they don't like a wine, they can bring it back to the state and get a refund at the full purchase price of the wine. We sold this wine to the State of Pennsylvania sometime in 1993.
Fifteen years later someone doesn't like the wine, brings it back, gets a refund, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board sends us a billback for $12.71 for the bottle of wine.
The bill sent us doesn't tell us why it was returned. It doesn't really matter to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania because it is not their money. If we don't pay, they will sue us!
My God, Burgundy used to be cheaper in those days.!
Still the biggest pencil in the world!
Wow, is this true? Why do Pennsylvanians put up with this system? Utah I understand, but you're telling me there are no private liquor stores in Philadelphia? Doesn't seem to have helped things.
Now that's accountability.
Poor .sasha should be able to pass the bottle of seriously corked '98 Gouges NSG that afflicted us tonight back up the chain to someone.
Yes, I moved to Pittsburgh a little while ago, and it sucks. The great Steeltown itself doesn't suck, just the wine. I actually saw a couple Louis/Dressner wines in a shop when I was working a few hours away in Charleston, WV. I was so damn happy to see them, I brought them back home like a couple of puppies. I was eventually going to write you guys to see if you could please start shipping your wines here! Please?
Just wait until your friend Obama becomes president. This is just the tip of the iceberg.