A brand-new Hell Gate Podcast will be dropping later today! You won't want to miss it. Listen and subscribe here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Will supermarkets like Wegmans and Whole Foods finally be able to sell wine in New York state? Not if your local wine shop has anything to say about it.
Alongside big-ticket items like taxing the rich and strengthening protections for undocumented immigrants, legislators in Albany this year are once again debating legislation that would allow grocery stores to sell bottles of pinot grigio, bringing New York state in line with most other states in the country.
It's become a perennial topic up in Albany, and one that State Senator Liz Krueger, the sponsor of the bill alongside her State Assembly colleague Pamela Hunter, believes is an idea whose time has come.
"Forty other states already allow for the sale of wine in grocery stores, and those states continue to have liquor stores. This is not a radical idea, it's actually completely mainstream," Krueger told Hell Gate. A 2025 Siena poll found that 70 percent of voters in the state back the move, down slightly from 75 percent in 2023.