Weddingbee Blog

If you live in Pennsylvania, you might be familiar with the ridiculous, old fashioned, utterly impossible to understand liquor laws this state has.

Source

If you don’t live in Pennsylvania, here’s the quick run-down: the sale of liquor of any kind must be sold in a state-regulated and owned store, which means no booze in the grocery stores, but more importantly, you are quite limited to the wines offered in the state-owned stores. In order to find rare/obscure wines, there is a long process to go about getting what you’re looking for, as opposed to other states, where many independently owned specialty wine stores may carry rare wines.

Okay, so I’m done boring you about Pennsylvania liquor laws. Here’s where it affects me and Mr. Socks:

We came up with a wonderful, perfect, beautiful, amazing, DELICIOUS wine list for our wedding. I mean, this thing was beautiful, people. It had a wide array of flavors to please any palate and they were obscure enough to not be overpriced ($10-15 per bottle on average). We spent a LONG time on this wine list.

And then we handed it over to our venue, and lo and behold, only one of them was available without special ordering, which could take weeks and weeks, which we don’t have.

I might have cried over this stupid wine list. (PM me if you want it, and tell me how delicious it is if you use it…sigh.)

So Mr. Socks and I went back to the drawing board and had to find wines that weren’t quite so obscure but weren’t more than $15 in most cases (we went over on a couple of bottles).

Wanna know our final wine list? I’ve included some tasting notes for those who are interested in purchasing your own wine for your wedding! We’re still thinking about getting one Rose wine, but we haven’t decided on one yet! If I could, I would choose Guigal Tavel Rose, which ranges from $15-20 per bottle, but it is not available through Pennsylvania. (Of course, I can pick it right up at my local liquor store where I live in New Jersey, but my venue cannot buy it since they’re in PA…ARGHH)

La Crema Chardonnay
Sonoma County, California
Expressive nose with full aromas of ripe pear, apple, and a touch of spice. On the palate you get a creamy, smooth texture and flavors of ripe pear fruit with a good dose of vanilla spice, oak and honey.

Trimbach Gewurztraminer
Alsace, France
Exotic, spicy aromas of lychee and orange peel. Rich and intense, this Gewürztraminer is luscious and well balanced with a dry, spicy finish.

Errazuriz Sauvignon Blanc
Valle de Aconcagua, Chile
Pale gold in the glass, this wine has a nose of green olives, cut grass. In the mouth it is quite mineral in character with nice unripe apples, wet stones, and a beautiful finish that is slightly savory.

Feudi di San Gregorio Taurasi
Campania, Italy
Deep garnet in the glass, this wine has a floral nose that reaches to the extreme of candied grapes with a little dried herbs mixed in. In the mouth it is lush and juicy with flavors of blackcurrant and a toasty quality that resolves to black licorice as the wine finishes.

Perrin Les Christins Vacqueyras
Rhone, France
Clearly a wine from a warm place, with its amber hues and richness of texture. The nose is reminiscent of morello cherries, flowers and licorice. On the palate it shows an unctuous texture and is rich and concentrated.

Simonnet Febvre Pinot Noir Reserve
Chablis, France
Displays typical Pinot strawberry and dark red fruit flavours, medium acidity, earthy supple tannins with good length and soft finish.

Bleasedale Cabernet Sauvignon Mulberry Tree 2005
Langhorne Creek, Australia
Deep ruby. Strongly perfumed bouquet offers suave blackberry, mulberry, cedar, rose and minerals. Silky and sweet, with inviting dark berry preserve flavors, gentle tannins and impressive finishing energy.

There you have it! In the end, we’re very happy with our final list, though it’s not quite the quality of wines we would have had if our original wine list could have been ordered. (Through no fault of our venue—it’s entirely PA’s stupid laws!)

We’ll have descriptions of all of the wines (and beers—more to come on that!) so our guests can make an educated decision of the wine that best suits their palate.

Did you have a run-in with a stupid law that prevented you from doing something you wanted for your wedding? PA brides, have you had issues getting the wines you wanted because of these silly laws?