Total Wine is Totally Awesome!
We often reference Total Wine in this blog, but until recently neither of us had ever been.
I had a chance to visit the Total Wine in Dallas, Texas while on a recent business trip. My first thought was this place is awesome! My second thought was I wish we had one in San Diego.
Total Wine is a wine, beer, and liquor super store. It’s very similar to BevMo and Specs. They are predominantly located in the South, but do have a few stores in California. We frequently refer to them when they carry wines we recommend on this blog because we know many of our friends have a Total Wine nearby.
The visit to Total Wine resulted in sharing a few bottles which made it perfect.
My brother-in-law Mark and his family live in Dallas. I was heading over to their place for dinner and drinks and wanted to bring a bottle of wine to share. As luck would have it, Total Wine was on the way to their home.
The funny part came when I was shopping and I got a call from Mark.
“Are you on your way over?”
“Yes, but I made a stop,” I said a little evasively, not wanting to reveal I was buying wine to bring to the house.
“I was thinking of stopping by Total Wine to pick up half a case and could use your help.”
Ooops, cover blown!
We had a good laugh when I told him I was already there. Mark arrived a few minutes later and we wandered the aisles like kids in a candy store.
They have great selection, a huge inventory, and outstanding prices. In fact, Total Wine usually has lower prices than BevMo and Specs, as evidenced by a post on sparkling wine recommendations for your Oscar party.
The wine was sectioned off by varietal and country of origin. I could get lost in their French section alone. That's section as in area of the store, not section of one aisle. It was huge.
Their domestic Pinot Noir section took up both sides of one aisle with bottles from outstanding Pinot Noir regions such as the Willamette Valley, Russian River, and Carneros. They even had a few bottles from Santa Barbara County, including this bottle of Au Bon Climat that I picked up to bring to the house.
Sally and I had recently shared this bottle with her Mom in Chicago, so it was nice to share it with other family members too.
Total Wine also had a comprehensive selection of beer and liquor. Mark, being related to Sally, is naturally a fan of whiskey. We had fun exploring this section too and Mark picked up a bottle of Aberfeldy Scotch to add to his liquor cabinet.
We could have spent even more time exploring if it wouldn’t have made us late for dinner. BevMo better watch out — as soon as Total Wine opens a San Diego location we’ll be there!
