For Rieslings… I stock up every spring at the L.A. Wine Co. in Marina del Rey next to Beverage Warehouse.
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Do you jest or are you serious, Robert?
What’s happening? I stopped going to Domaine because of funky tudes but Lou?!? all love and he curates most interesting wines… and it’s Lou!!! of the former Lou restaurant
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Not a big fan of Wally’s. They consistently charge considerably more than other retailers and their selection of “eclectic” wines is not great. Wally’s is more about the “big” names that trophy collectors want.
I have never been to their store, but I order a lot of wine from Woodland Hills Wine in the San Fernando Valley. https://www.whwc.com/ They tend to have the wines I like to drink and their prices are fair.
I’ve bought Chateau d’Yquem at the Wine Store. Forgot what vintage (it was an older one), but it wasn’t great. Not sure if it wasn’t properly stored. I’m not a huge fan of Wine Store and they don’t have a wide selection of Loire and Alsace.
John and Pete’s on La Cienega is this funky store, where I wouldn’t buy anything old because I would worry about proper storage, but they carry a wide range of wines from importers that I favor such as Rosenthal, Louis/Dressner and Kermit Lynch and you can always find an interesting bottle from the Loire or an interesting Riesling there. https://www.johnandpetes.com/
Kogod Wines out of San Diego probably has the best selection on the West Coast of the kind of wines I favor, but they don’t have a retail location. It’s just a warehouse, but everything is properly stored. https://www.kogodwine.com/ Their prices tend to be on the high side, but not obscene like Wally’s.
Kogod is modeled on Crush Wine in New York City, which has an actual retail store in addition to a warehouse, and which is my favorite wine store in the U.S. Their prices are usually the lowest in the U.S. and they have an amazing, well-curated selection of wine and champagne. https://www.crushwineco.com/ Perhaps a trip to New York, rather than Los Angeles, is indicated.
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Lou is the absolute best. Such a legend.
If this was a year ago, I’d have said to try the FOOD at Wally’s Santa Monica.
But since Chef David Feau departed, I’m not sure if Wally’s SM remains destination-worthy.
If you DO happen to stop by the Wally’s BH store, also check out the nearby Cheese Store of Beverly Hills for eye candy bottles.
So there you have it: Eat the food at the wine store, and check out the wines at the cheese store. 
Oh, how could I forget… Wing Hop Fung!
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Oh I bookmarked Wing Hop Fung already strictly for gits n’ shiggles.
Someone I know based in LA appears to love going to their events at Santa Anita mall nearby when they do W bar by Wing Hop Fung (wonder if he has any idea…)…lots of crazy whiskey tastings and wine lollapalooza’s. I’d go there only for putting media on the 'gram but will have to use the phone to disguise my chuckling…
I’d have to save precious quota… not sure if I will even do wine tasting with cheese (swallowing the wine of course) during the day if I know more alcohol is going to be consumed at night! So if I drop by Wally’s (not W by WHF lol) it will be just for eye candy.
But with that said, and on a related topic, what are all of your favorite / recommend wine bars in LA?
I would call wine house personally
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Right off the top:
Kass
Papilles
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Wine bars? We have wine bars in L.A.?
Seriously, we must have a few, but I haven’t been anywhere that I would characterize as a wine bar. I think that unlike New York, we don’t have the foot traffic to support wine bars, where people are just going to drop by on their way home at night.
They have a very comfortable lounge area at Cut in Beverly Hills, where it is attractive to sit and you can get decent nibbles, but the wine seriously sucks. I’d stick to hard liquor at that place. Nice place to hang out, so long as you don’t want wine.
I wouldn’t call it a wine bar, but at Eataly in Century City, you can buy a bottle at the Pizza & Pasta bar area and then rather than sitting at the bar, which can be crowded, you can take your wine and glasses and sit wherever you want in the store and nibble to your heart’s content on Roman pizza or sandwiches from the sandwich takeout or desserts from the dessert takeout. You can also do it by the glass, but if I am with enough people, I’d rather grab a full bottle at the bar and take it somewhere else in the store. I’ve never done it, but so long as you have somehow procured wine glasses and you have a corkscrew, you could do the same by buying a bottle at the Eataly wine store. I find the Italian wines on offer at Eataly surprisingly drinkable and they have a good selection of amaro.
Del Frisco’s at the Century City mall has an inner sanctum champagne lounge (you have to specifically ask to be taken there). It’s over the top gorgeous in a kind of Texas way and they have a great selection of champagne. Last time I popped in, it was kind of dead – more of a place for a quiet business meeting or a romantic assignation than a fun lively place to hang out.
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I encourage you to go out more. Bar Bandini, El Prado, Stanley’s Wet Goods, Cafe de Garcons, Covell, Augustine, Tabula Rasa tho they are more generalist.
just of the top of the dome
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Really like Bandini and Tabula Rasa as @Nemroz mentioned, and also Melody in Virgil Village is great and underrated, often has cool food pop-ups. All three of those places focus on Natural Wine.
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They’re two of the best wine shops in LA, but they’re not the kind of shops that have:
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Total Wine, Silver Lake Wine, and Bar & Garden
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Hmmn, you kind of prove my point – all of the ones you mention except Stanley’s are over an hour drive for me in traffic. While I might drive an hour for an amazing meal, I’m not driving across town in traffic to go to a wine bar. For those who live in those neighborhoods or reasonably adjacent, they may be good hangs.
If I happened to find myself in Culver City, Stanley’s looks like an interesting option since apparently they will open any bottle in the store for you for only $4.
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Ah, it seemed like you didn’t like them for some other unspecified reason. I like that Domaine LA in particular seems to be curated to the owner’s taste.
I think I have enough wine shops to check out for a future visit in town, regardless of whether they have the selections I want or not, assuming they are on the way somewhere or not too far out of the way, thanks everyone!!
Next question…
we have a few Costco’s in Northern California that have some very interesting selections at reasonable prices. Most recently there have been some great buys up here such as Dr Loosen Riesling Kabinett Blue Slate 2018, Sassicaia’s 2nd wine Guidalberto 2016 (it went super fast), Tignanello 2016, a couple Mersault 1er Cru, random cheap Alsace whites like Zind Humbrecht and Hugel, a Sancerre here or there, small producers of Beaujolais Cru Morgon Cote Du Py and Moulin A Vent etc. And oh a few of them carry sake, but smaller name distributor that many people probably wouldn’t even consider but some might be fun to try at home.
Are there some locations of Costco in LA that are worth visiting that have better selections of wine than others?
Bar Bandini and Tabula Rasa are my two favorite bars in LA. Both are serious about both beer and wine. TR has a reserve sour beer bottle list that has often some pretty killer stuff, also La Morra pizza on Wednesdays.
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It’s not a deep library . I think that’s the point