For the sake of argument, let’s say that this morning I broke the ridiculous Pennsylvania law intended to force the state’s residents to buy wine at our state stores, and went out of state to buy a case of wine. And let’s say I went across the river into New Jersey and visited Moore Bros. in Pennsauken. To make this experiment interesting, let’s further suppose that I e-mailed them yesterday, gave them a budget, told them the kinds of wines I like (and the kinds of wines I don’t), and asked them to put together a mixed case of eight reds and four whites.
If I had done that, I would have found a wine store that specializes in small, artisanal, family-owned European producers, with whom they have personal connections (and if I’d gone today, say, I would have had the chance to have met Aljoscha Goldschmidt of a tiny Tuscan winery, and to have tasted some of his wines). I would have thought, perhaps, “How crunchy-con, small-is-beautiful is this?!” And I would have gotten .extensive wine notes printed out for each of the bottles the helpful clerk chose for me, telling me about the wine itself, and the history and terroir of its source, so I could understand what I was drinking and why it tastes the way it does.
Wouldn’t that have been fantastic? What a shame that law-abiding Philadelphians can’t make the short trip across the bridge to Moore Bros. I suspect they would really be pleased by the experience. If only we had free-market capitalism re: wine shopping in Pennsylvania…