About the OSJL Wine Club

The Ocean State Job Lot Wine Club (OSJL Wine Club) is a community of wine enthusiasts who love finding great deals on wine at the most magical store in New England, Ocean State Job Lot.

What is Ocean State Job Lot?

OSJL is a really unique place. It's literally a Job Lot, or discount store pulling together random finds and excess and surplus from suppliers all around New England.

The Enigma that is Ocean State Job Lot

I drove around New England for probably ten years without ever setting foot in an OSJL. I think I thought they were literal job hunting facilities, or maybe some sort of thrift shop.

When I finally did decide to check one out, I just walked around with a blank look on my face, unsure what I was looking at or what rhyme or reason the store was centered around. I think I purchased one garden pot for $10.

It was an overwhelming experience, full of randomness and strange objects from far off places. Potato Chips from Spain. Tinned Fish from Portugal. Pasta sauce direct from Italy for $1.00 a can. What was this place? I knew I had to go back.

Ocean State has wine??

Yes! 9 locations in Massachusetts, and several others in VT and Maine, carry wine and beer. They have a line of their "house wine," called "J.W. Morris" that actually isn't half bad, at $3.99 a bottle.

But they also have an array of truly random wine, as is fitting for Ocean State. The wines range from Italian reds and whites, to Spanish Rioja, to French Roses, to American Cabs, Merlots, Pinots, and blends. And many more. There are usually a few shelves of truly awful wine (Martha Stewart x 19 Crimes, or often "low calorie" focused wines), but often 10-15 varied wines with a lot of potential. Most of the wine, as you might expect, comes from importers from the Boston area, but some is surplus from other sources.

How discounted are they? Somewhere between "decent deals" and "holy crap!" Some wines are probably priced about what they're worth (for example, a 2020 California red for $6.99 is probably right... mmm, smoked wine). But some are downright great. Mosel Riesling from well-respected producers for ten bucks a bottle, decent Willamette Valley pinots for $12, and sometimes amazing single-estate wines from very good makers that would normally go for $50 a bottle down to $19.99.

A lot of it is a crap shoot, but that's part of the fun!

Which Ocean States have Wine & Beer?

As of February 2025, the locations that carry wine & beer are:

Massachusetts

  • Falmouth, MA
  • Fairhaven, MA
  • Leominster, MA
  • Medford, MA
  • North Adams, MA
  • Sturbridge, MA
  • Springfield, MA
  • Tewksbury, MA
  • Westboro, MA

Maine & Vermont

  • Falmouth, ME
  • Belfast, ME
  • Rockland, ME
  • St. Johnsbury, VT

Origin Story

The OSJL Wine Club began as a chat on Mastodon among some Boston area locals, @trisweb and @rednikki. In response to an open question about wine suggestions, Nikki replied that Ocean State had great deals on wine, and that many gems could be found.

The Mastodon toot that started it all.

Once the secret was out, we started making trips to OSJL to see what was on the shelves, and began posting on the #OSJLWineClub hashtag on Mastodon.

The Mastodon sharing was great, but these wine finds and reviews deserve to be archived and easily discoverable and searchable, so we set up this fancy blog!

We believe that Ocean State Job Lot, at least in the local region of their few stores that carry wine & beer, deserves as much attention as the Trader Joe's and Costco wine deals (a la Reverse Wine Snob) that so many of us have enjoyed.

Want to contribute?

Are you a wine enthusiast who wants to join in on the high-risk high-reward OSJL Wine deal fun? The best way is to start posting on Mastodon under the hashtag #OSJLWineClub, and tag one of us for visibility. Once you participate a few times, feel free to ask if you can become an editor. The more the merrier!

Disclaimer

Important note: the OSJL Wine Club is in no way affiliated with or sanctioned by Ocean State Job Lot. We just enjoy the discount wine and magical and random process of finding deals at this uniquely New England store. Though we can imagine they're happy with the increased sales.