The $160,000 shop, on Route 202 in New Hope, features a tasting bar; wide aisles; LED lighting; rich, wood cases; and a cork recycling program for eco-imbibers. Among the free glossy handouts: a recipe guide that advises it's perfectly OK to use jug wine when making sangria.

The store is navigable by color (blue walls for spirits, orange for wine) and nationality, the better to find Cabo Wabo tequila or a South African Syrah. Should the aproned Williams & Sonomaesque clerks fail to quench your thirst, simply sit down at the in-store iPad cued to the slick website www.finewineandgoodspirits.com and peruse the exotic online exclusives.

The design team behind Fine Wines & Good Spirits clearly thought of everything in making the place seem like the antithesis of what it really is: a State Store owned by the much-mocked Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board.

That friendly fellow behind the cash register at last week's grand opening? A state employee sent to a six-week wine school on your dime.

"I've got a great pension and great benefits," said John Boukalis, a 26-year PLCB veteran who earns more than the $30,766 average for the agency's 4,276 store workers.

"I'm happy," he added, acknowledging that customers aren't always enamored of the costly reality of getting their drink on in Pennsylvania. "Here," he says, "everybody just knows this is how it is."

Peace and morals

Established after Prohibition to "protect health, peace, and morals" by limiting access to the strong stuff, the agency now hawks booze on Sundays in some shops, sponsors whiskey festivals, and runs radio ads urging kids to honor Mom with the gift of vodka.

The government that preached moderation became the largest buyer of alcohol in the United States. (Take that, Wal-Mart.) In turn, Pennsylvania makes it easier for people to buy a keg than a six-pack.

Restaurant owners must stock their bars with heavily marked-up bottles slapped with an 18 percent tax that dates to the Johnstown flood of 1936.

Even the Wine Club presents a deal too good to be true: Sure, you can order online at home, but you have to drive to a Wine & Spirits Shoppe to pick up each box.

More Costco, less gulag

The New Hope Fine Wine & Good Spirits upgrade symbolizes the latest round of PLCB shape-shifting. Think more Costco, less gulag.

It looks like private enterprise and acts like private enterprise, not that anyone in Harrisburg will say it ought to be a private enterprise. They'd rather talk about the $105 million the PLCB kicked in last year to the general fund.

Tom Ridge was the last governor who floated the idea of selling the selling of booze to the free market, and look what happened to him: He wound up shaken and stirred, with his face emblazoned on a T-shirt reading, "Absolut Stupid."

At the grand opening in New Hope, winemaker Gina Gallo poured sips from her famous family's finest vintages. A wall of "Chairman's Select" premium wines beckoned oenophiles and wannabes.

Yet it was a man in a cutoff T-shirt and ball cap who made the ceremonial first purchase: a 5-liter box of Vella blush.

On this day, the government price was right.

"It was only $13.24!" raved George Slack of nearby Lambertville. "In New Jersey, it could be 16 bucks."