A toast to new era in wine sales

It’s been a good week for wine lovers in Pennsylvania. First, you can now buy wine in a supermarket. At least some of them. The Acme at Granite Run this week became the first to add wine beside its beer offerings.

Then on Wednesday, state Sen. Tom Killion, R-9 of Middletown, helped blow up another longtime pet peeve of oenophiles. He paid a visit to Grace Winery to herald the first direct delivery of wine to consumers.

That’s right, you no longer have to visit your friendly neighborhood state store in order to get your favorite bottle of wine. You can now have it shipped directly to your home, bypassing the monopoly of the state Liquor Control Board altogether.

That is now true for several wineries right here in Delco, including Grace, which is in out in Glen Mills, or perhaps your favorite vintner in California or Oregon.

The LCB this week “uncorked” a new era in wine sales, not only allowing sales in supermarkets but also issuing 48 licenses to wineries across the state and nation for direct sales to consumers’ homes.

Aside from Grace Winery, the others snagging licenses in Pennsylvania are Penn Woods Winery in Eddystone and Sand Castle in Bucks County.

That list is expected to grow in the coming months. More than 200 businesses have applied for the licenses.

All of this is a result of Act 39, which was hammered out in June as part of budget negotiations between Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and the Republican majority in the Legislature.

Wolf has opposed privatization, which was favored by Killion and many Republicans. Wolf urged a “modernization” of the system, an attempt to make the transactions as consumer friendly as possible. State stores were given the ability to expand their hours, and more of them now feature Sunday hours. They got some flexibility on prices.

The Republicans did not get privatization, but they were successful in winning something most consumers have long favored – the sale of beer and wine in supermarkets, and now direct sales of wine to your home, in the process cutting out the middle man of the LCB.

Of course, there remain some serious quibbles. In terms of convenience, the supermarket experience still leaves a lot to be desired. You still have to visit a separate section of the store and pay for your beer and wine separately from the rest of your groceries. The same will hold true when Wawa finally becomes the first convenience store to feature beer sales at its location on Naamans Creek Road in Concord later this year.

Credit Killion and his GOP brethren with dragging the state – albeit with Democrats kicking and screaming – out of this archaic method of alcohol sales.

“Pennsylvania has been in the stone ages when it comes to liquor,” the senator said during his visit to the Glen Mills winery. “Only two states, us and Utah, are completely controlled by the state.

“When I was in the House (he recently won a special election to fill the 9th District seat in the Senate), we passed a full privatization bill. The bill did not pass but the same bill was amended in the Senate. The bill (Act 39) that is left is great for all of our Pennsylvanian wineries and for those from other areas. We can have the wineries from out of state ship wines once they get licenses.”

Killion could not help himself when he described the experience of trying to buy wine or spirits that is very familiar to Pennsylvanians of a certain age.

“If you go back when I was a child accompanied by my parents to the state liquor store, there was a window with a book where you looked through a window and wrote down what you wanted and they would tie it to you.”

He also stressed that while the state has come a long way, there is still a long way to go.

“We still have limited hours, limited locations … This is a step in the right direction.

He’s right. Total Wine this is not.

We urge the Legislature to continue the battle for privatization. Simply put, the state has no business running a monopoly that would be better off in the hands of private enterprise. Are there concerns about lost revenue? Lost jobs? Absolutely, but they are not insurmountable.

Killion noted that this week’s developments mean an increase in sales – and an increase in tax revenue off those sales.

It’s something the public – the people that pay all those salaries in Harrisburg – have indicated again and again that it wants.

This week was a big step in the right direction.