Man, are we lucky.
It's hard to imagine a metro area our size having anywhere near as many cool wine stores as the Twin Cities. (And I can say from experience that Denver and Atlanta do not.)
It's a fairly recent phenomenon, and who knows how long it will last if the economy continues to tank. In the meantime, we should savor what we have, and patronize the merchants who are making this such a great wine-shopping town.
How many are there? Well, I just finished compiling a list of the top area stores for our wine Web page (blogs2.startribune.com/blogs/wine/) and ended up with 50. And a few decent stores didn't make the cut.
During the aughts (my favorite name for this decade), a few wine-centric stores have gone by the wayside -- I particularly miss Broviak -- but a lot more good to great ones have opened. Just as important, others have improved, some of them mightily.
My top 50 list will change, if only because some chains (the emerging Top Ten/Northgate) will improve and new stores will open. When people want to know my favorite wine store, I turn it back on them -- but only because it truly depends on what they're seeking.
So here are my favorite local retailers by category:
Best places to stock a cellar when money is no object: Wine Street Spirits, France 44, Haskell's, Buon Giorno, the Wine Market
