Expand the sale of wine?

  This week, the state's Joint Study on Wine in Grocery Stores will begin a year-long study on how Tennessee regulates alcohol, including whether supermarkets and convenience stores should be allowed to sell wine.

The committee, composed of six Republicans and six Democrats, will make its recommendations to the state Legislature after the 2010 fall elections.

For people who move to Tennessee from other states, it can come as a surprise to find that — except for wineries such as Clarksville's Beachaven — wine is sold only in liquor stores. When it comes to alcohol, grocery and convenience stores are limited to beer sales.

Last year, the Tennessee Grocers & Convenience Store Association launched its Red, White & Food campaign that urged consumers to contact their lawmakers and ask them to remove the wine sales restrictions.

The association says consumers will benefit from more competition from wine sales. Citing a state study, it says that permitting wine sales in grocery stores will generate more than $16 million in new revenue for the state and $11 million for local governments.

The sales bump is based at least in part on the assumption that shoppers who are in grocery or convenience stores will be more inclined to make impulse purchases if the wine is right there on a shelf. The connoisseurs who prefer a larger selection are more likely to stick with the liquor stores.

The Tennessee Wine & Spirits Retailers Association, which represents the liquor stores, says that allowing grocery and convenience to sell wine could hurt their businesses and won't benefit the state in the long run.

Over the next year, committee members undoubtedly will be wooed by those special interests on both sides of the issue. "It's going to be good business for lobbyists," said Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, the study committee's organizer and sponsor of a bill that would allow grocery stores to sell wine.

Ultimately, unless the liquor store lobbyists can come up with a more convincing argument than they have thus far, the committee should recommend to the Legislature that Tennessee join the 33 states that already allow sales of wine in grocery and convenience stores and finally end the wine sales monopoly.