Colvin Wine Merchants owner Stefan Kalogridis works in his Albany store in 2023. Columnist Chris Churchill fears allowing supermarkets to sell wine would lead to the closure of many liquor stores in the state.

The Wine Shop on New Scotland Avenue in Albany. The Wine Shop opened the day Prohibition ended, Dec. 5, 1933.

In my young and wild days, three years ago, I seem to have written a column or two suggesting that wine should be sold in New York’s grocery stores.

But the passage of time brings wisdom, or so we hope, and I can now report that I am significantly more ambivalent about a prospect once again under consideration by the state Legislature.

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The chief advantage of allowing the sales is obvious: Convenience for shoppers who would no longer need to schlep to a second store for the wine they want with their dinner. Presumably, the cost of wine would fall somewhat. And then there’s the notion that New York’s silly restriction is archaic and so, the thinking goes, why not get with the modern age?

All of that is fine. I love convenience as much as the average person, and I likely enjoy wine more than the average person.

But letting grocery stores sell wine would shift wealth toward the large, often........

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