I don’t really know how else to say this, but the Pennsylvania state stores are doing something odd right now.

If you’ve been shopping them lately, you’ve probably noticed it. You stop. You look at the tag. You look again. Not because you’re confused — because it doesn’t feel right.

This isn’t a holiday sale. It’s not clever pricing. Nobody sat in a room and decided this was a good idea.

It’s just what happens when a very rigid system hits a very soft year and doesn’t know how to react. So it keeps going. Cutting. Marking down. Moving on to the next line item. No pause button.

Normally, clearance works the same way every year. Wines don’t sell. Prices drop a little. Then a little more. Eventually they’re gone. Clean. Predictable.

This winter? Not so clean.

Too much wine hit clearance at once. Then it didn’t move. So the prices dropped again. And again. At some point you’d expect someone to step in and say, “That’s enough.” That part never happened.

So now you have bottles sitting there at prices that don’t really exist in the real world. Not flawed wine. Not tired wine. Just… wine. With tags that look like mistakes.

Here’s what ended up in our cart recently. Not because we went hunting. Because it was sitting there:

• Domaine Nico “Grand Père” Pinot Noir, Mendoza 2021 — $19.93 (was $34.99)
• Santa Julia “La Vaquita” Natural Clarete, Maipú 2023 — $4.93 (was $18.99)
• Boutinot “La Côte Sauvage” Cairanne 2020 — $3.93 (was $15.99)
• Two Vintners Grenache, Columbia Valley 2020 — $6.93 (was $27.99)
• Raptor Ridge Barrel Select Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley 2021 — $6.93 (was $24.99)
• Charles Smith “Powerline” Cabernet Sauvignon, Walla Walla Valley 2017 — $11.73 (was $41.99)

Those aren’t edge cases. They’re just examples.

In a few of these, the numbers dip into territory that makes anyone who’s ever made wine a little uncomfortable. No winery would choose this. No private retailer would allow it. If this weren’t a state system — and if it were legal — someone would already have bought the lot.

That’s not what’s happening here. This isn’t strategy. It’s inertia.

If you want to see the whole mess laid out, the FW&GS clearance page tells the story better than I can. Filter by a store you’ll actually visit. Ignore the stuff that isn’t in stock. The rest speaks for itself.

I’ve mentioned this before. What’s different now is that the discounts have stopped being subtle. They’re loud. A little embarrassing. And probably temporary.

Systems like this don’t fix themselves gracefully. They just… snap back.