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Welcome to Norway, the world's most unlikely wine hotspot – in Oslo, there are weeks-long campouts to secure top burgundies. What's going on?
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- Title
- Welcome to Norway, the world's most unlikely wine hotspot
- Word count
- 290 words
While it’s convenient to be able to buy wine in almost any grocery store (and at any time) when I’m abroad, I always miss the selection and expertise of Vinmonopolet. Are there any other country except our Scandinavian monopolist neighbors that have shops with the extraordinary selection of wines on offer that you can get here?
I had never heard of Vinmonopole before, but it's government owned, right?
We have a similar "Crown corporation" (government owned) alcohol store here in Ontario, Canada called the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) (pic from inside one)... and they also typically have a huge selection of Wine, and employees who are usually quite knowledgeable too. And every Province/Territory (except Alberta, IIRC) also has their own version of a Crown corporation alcohol store as well.
I was curious about the selection of Vinmonopolet vs. LCBO (since my experience with the LCBO is mostly great, unless I'm looking for something really specific, which I'm generally not).
By the raw numbers, the Vinmonopolet lists 35,000 products on their website, vs. LCBO's 13,000 (with only pretending to read the Norwegian, the product types seem comparable enough: wine, liquor, beer).
If you wanted to take it a step further, and compare the products vs. population these stores serve: Norway has a rather smaller population than Ontario (5 vs. 14 million).
I have to say, I finished my little investigation feeling fairly impressed with Norway's Vinmonopolet.
I don't know what the situation is like in Norway, but it's worth noting that here in Ontario the LCBO also competes with The Beer Store, which isn't a crown corp, but is a government sanctioned retailer jointly owned by "the big three" breweries (Molson, Labatt, and Sleeman), as well as a bunch of smaller Canadian craft breweries. Those are the only two retailers licensed to sell alcohol meant for off-site consumption to the public, and the LCBO and Beer Store stores are also very often right next to each other as well. So one of the reasons the selection at the LCBO is smaller than Vinmonopolet is probably because the LCBO mostly focuses on wine and spirits, and lets The Beer Store handle beer, hard seltzer/tea/cider, wine/vodka coolers, etc.
There are definitely stores dedicated to wines that have far more selection than a grocery store in other countries, but I don't have enough experience with Vinmonopolet to compare their selections.
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