Can we ever solve the problem of wine availability?

Probably not, hence these jury-rigged solutions for wine availability

One of the most requested features during my recent blog survey: Some way to improve wine availability, so you’ll have a better idea where to buy what I write about. Which, sadly, is almost impossible.

The rule for wine availability on the blog: If I write about it, you should be able to find it at a well-run wine shop in a decent-sized U.S. city. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to buy it at a supermarket, Walmart, or specialty stores like Trader Joe’s.

Thanks to the way wine is sold in the U.S., I can’t do better than that.

That’s because wine is not like ketchup or laundry detergent. Its sale is controlled by state law, and each state has different laws. Those laws make up the legal and regulatory nightmare that is the three-tier system, and it means that even if I can buy the wine in Dallas, there is no guarantee you can buy it in any other state in the union – or even in Houston, for that matter.

Case in point: I got samples of three $20 California wines, one of which I liked and wanted to write about. The catch? The wine is only for sale in eight states, which isn’t all that unusual. So what do I do?

I’ve written about this many times, both on the blog and in the cheap wine book. It’s the most frustrating thing about what I do, and even more so because it baffles so many readers. One woman wanted to know where to buy several roses I recommended in a free-lance piece. I asked her where she lived, and she didn’t understand – even after I explained it to her – why that mattered. Why couldn’t she just buy the wine at her grocery store?

Changes in the wine business are making this problem even worse. For one thing, more retailers are selling more private label wine, wine that you can only buy at their stores. I had a fabulous $9 Gascon white from Whole Foods the other day, but it’s only for sale at Whole Foods. Do I write about it or not? For another, wine brands have proliferated like plague-infested rats in a medieval city, so that there is not enough shelf space for all of them, even if three-tier was more benign.

In the end, solving the problem of wine availability is out of our hands. All we can do is jury-rig a solution. This post describes the best ways to find wine that you don’t see on the shelf. In addition, I’ll start adding the name of the importer when I review foreign wines. This comes with the caveat that a wine can have more than one importer depending on where you live.

Because, as a long-time blog visitor and reformed wine PR type named Leslee Borger told me: “I’ve stopped trying to explain to my husband why we can’t order wine from Amazon. It ended with ‘You just can’t.’ ”