WSJ finds a lot to love in Dallas-area wine purveyors, including Whole Foods, Kroger, Central Market

In today’s Wall Street Journal, wine writer Lettie Teague spends some quality time with her sister, who lives in Frisco, and goes spelunking among the wine shelves of some area supermarkets.

“A great deal of wine is sold in Lone Star grocery stores,” she writes. “Only California and Florida sell more. But the better wines are a fairly recent phenomenon, according to Harris Polakoff, proprietor of Pogo’s Wine & Spirits, a fine-wine shop in Dallas, who said the selection started improving 10 years ago.” (Harris is an old friend from grade school.)

Shout-outs, too, to the Kroger in Frisco, where wine specialist Sharon McKoy was selling the 2012 Clos des Papes Chateauneuf du Pape for $139.99 and the 99-point (Robert Parker) 2012 Bevan Cellars Ontogeny for $63.99. Teague notes that “500 of the supermarket chain’s 2,631 stores staff a wine specialist, and each has the freedom to choose about 100 wines for his or her store.” Didn’t know that.

The Whole Foods in Highland Park receives high praise, too, as “the friendliest grocery store I’ve visited—especially in terms of its consumption policy. ‘You can open any bottle of wine you want and drink it in the store,’ said the store’s wine buyer, Holly Vaughan.”

And Teague notes that Central Market “had the largest wine section of any store I’d visited and even featured a wall of sought-after and expensive wines such as Masseto and Cristal. Dave, a salesman on the floor, recommended the 2013 Finca Resalso from Ribera del Duero at $14 as a ‘great deal.'”

photo courtesy WSJ.com