What You Can Find at Total Wine

To call Total Wine a grocery store of wine is an understatement, as this one is more like a warehouse.

What we love about Total Wine is just how vast their inventory is with features from practically every major wine-producing region being present, some with full rows of bottles represented, a massive collection of popular grapes made in the USA, a premium selection that will make even the biggest wine collector envious, and more.

This is the kind of store that you’ll go in with a budget and walk out spending double while still putting bottles back on the shelf to keep your bill in check- it is that good.

Where we often complain about wine shops either having good depth or good breadth, but not both, Total Wine does on almost all accounts. Want a Cote Rotie? You’ll likely find a couple dozen producers and vintages. Want an obscure bottle from Portugal or South Africa? Their selection is quite wide here, too.

While you still won’t find every producer or wine type here because, let’s be honest, the world of wine is really that large, it is really hard to go for wanting for more whenever you visit a Total Wine store. Well, perhaps wanting for more money to spend on wine, at least.

Not All Total Wine Has Spirits

Now, we also should deviate slightly and point out that not all Total Wine stores are created equally. Some are Total Wine, and others are Total Wine & Spirits.

This one goes back to the fact that alcohol sales are regulated at the state level, and not all states are created equally. Some, like our home state of Pennsylvania, is hyper regulated such that the government controls the bulk of sales. Total Wine just doesn’t exist here. Others are so open and free that Total Wine can sell whatever they want- wines, spirits, beer, you name it.

Others fall in a little in-between spot where the state controls sales of hard liquor, but are much more open to lower ABV products like wine and beer.

It is because of these variations in rules that you may find some Total Wine stores have robust liquor selections while others have none at all. The same company, but just different state rules dictating what they can sell.

As a wine writer, this one is slightly immaterial for our main goal of finding good bottles. You’ll get great wine at, I would assume, all Total Wine stores. But for those who may be visiting in different states, we would be remiss if we did not highlight the distinction because you really will have that kind of variation, unfortunately.

But if you’re like us, heading to Total Wine for all things wine is the name of the game, and you’ll just want to be prepared to temper your expectations really in only one category- just how much you can buy at one time.

Total Wine has several locations across the United States. We have visited stores in Maryland, Virginia, Arizona, and California, and hope that one day Pennsylvania’s laws would change to allow this one to open here as well.