Purchasing Wine on a Sunday

Yes, there are no unusual restrictions on alcohol as we have in the States. Certainly there may be stores closed on a Sunday, including wine stores, but that is more a case of a small business taking the traditional day off.

You should be able to go to about any grocery store, even small convenience stores and have a decent selection, usually the bigger names and some local options. Many will even have extended hours.

Yup. What Paul said. The Puritans didn't make much headway in Italy (speaking as a resident of New Orleans, where the Puritans didn't make much headway, either).

You can buy wine in Europe anywhere at anytime so don't worry about Sunday. The blue laws in the US are classic. We live in an area where car sales are prohibited on Sunday only in the last few years have alcohol sales on Sunday been permitted. The Europeans are a bit more enlightened on a number of subjects.

Italy is not Utah. Wine is sold any day.

But many cruise companies will not let you bring alcohol on board their vessels (probably because of lost revenue on their overpriced drinks?). It might be confiscated and returned when you disembark.

The Puritans didn't make much headway in Italy (speaking as a resident
of New Orleans, where the Puritans didn't make much headway, either).

LOL!!! Best laugh today!

Some cruise lines - such as Royal Caribbean - do allow their guests to bring a bottle or two of wine (not hard liquor) per stateroom for personal use on initial boarding day so I'm guessing that's the case for our OP (but best to check).

Don’t forget to take a corkscrew!

Umm, .... why not just get it Saturday?

A little offended by the historically inaccurate blame attributed to the Puritans. The true picture is much bigger than that.

Reality is that the Christian Church as a whole (including the Catholics) have advocated for a day of rest on Sundays. As recently as 2012, the Vatican was advocating for Sunday closures in Italy
https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/vatican-works-stop-sunday-shopping-italy

The European Union work rules call for at least one day a week off of work for workers. Some countries seek to make this a consistent day for the majority of the workforce,usually on Sunday. It is up to each member nation in the EU to determine its policies on this. There is a case that by having a consistent day, families do have more time together since fewer people will be having to work.

Carol, Puritans were created to be made fun of, but it's just jokes. Get over it, it's nothing serious.

Carol, it was a joke and not " historically inaccurate".

But there are Christians who have had to work on Sundays since Christians have been around. It's not like the cows care what day it is if they have to be milked? People don't wait until Monday to have a heart attack 'cause there are no doctors working on Sundays?

And much of the world isn't Christian so Sunday isn't a holy day for everyone.

Carol, you are right. My response was somewhat simplistic. There were multiple Protestant movements that warned against the evils of alcohol in the 18th and 19th century in the United States, including movements within the Methodist (especially), Presbyterian, Quaker, Southern Baptist, and Mormon churches. Although there was some temperance activity within the Roman Catholic Church, it was minimal in comparison to that within several of the larger Protestant denominations. Thus, in those cities and states with significant populations of people of those denominations, many "blue laws" were passed which, in some cases are still standing today. However, in communities that had strong Roman Catholic influence (talking about you, my lovely Louisiana, among others), Sunday alcohol-abstinence blue laws never took hold. Thus I can buy a bottle of wine any time, (almost) anywhere in New Orleans (grocery stores, drug stores, Walmart, etc.) but when I visit family in Tulsa (hometown) have to go to a specialized wine store, and Never On Sunday!
Thus my response to our OT remains the same: the Protestant Reformation, and the judgement of some of the denominations that sprang from that Reformation re. certain behaviors, specifically here the purchase of wine on Sunday, should not be a factor on his vacation.

What really shocked me in my business travels is that in some states certain alcoholic beverages (especially hard liquor) could be sold only on weekdays and only in State Government buildings where the sales clerks were State employees in uniform with a badge.
Those buildings reminded me of the stores I saw in Eastern Europe before the fall of communism.

The state stores was a common reaction after federal prohibition was repealed. After prohibition it became a state by state regulation with varying degrees of religious influences. When I was an undergraduate in Iowa in the early 60s only beer could be sold in a college town. Anything else had be to purchase in a state liqueur store in the next town. That has change slowly over time. Utah via the Mormon influence has remained fairly restrictive but that is changing.

There was an interesting PBS program on the roots of prohibition that strongly supported the idea that the whole prohibition movement in the US primarily driving by the up-crest WASPs, especially women, against the immigrant populatione of the day. It really was an anti-immigration movement aimed at the Italians, Irish, Germans in the early 20th century.

Even in Colorado, that is a fairly progressive state, we have some strange liqueur rules. The big one is that a person or cooperation can own only one liqueur license. Therefore, only one Safeway, or Sams Club or John Smith can selling wine or hard liqueur in the state. If you had a unique marketing plan for selling wine, were highly successful, and wanted to open a second store across town -- you could not do so. And, of course, who is the strong supporter of these restrictions ?? -- free market Republicans.

Utah was, and probably still is a frustrating state. Beer is available in Grocery stores, but only up to 3.2%, they are changing it, mainly because the big breweries want to discontinue 3.2 beer, they are going to raise it to 4% (5%ABV) later this year. If you want stronger beer, wine or liquor, you have to go to a state store, even a town like Provo only has one or two stores, open 9 to 5, M-F. No refrigerators in the stores, so most craft beers will not distribute in Utah.

Even drinks by the glass used to be a hassle, you had to be a member of the bar to drink...basically fill out a form and have someone sponsor you (if you bought the guy at the end of the bar a drink he would sponsor you); they did away with that several years ago.

Traveling around the country, I ran into many odd rules, Pennsylvania used to have some weird sales rules, of course dry counties in the south, not being able to sell beer and liquor in the same store (same owner having a beer store right next to a liquor store was OK though), the list can go on and on. (of course in Mississippi you can drink a beer while you drive, so there's that)

Methodist here! I am not at all offended and can take a joke!

All right. If we’re going into the oddities of laws regulating alcohol sales, I know a few to contribute. When I moved to California in 1960, there was a law against the sale of alcohol within a mile of a university campus. Berkeley had a ring of liquor stores just outside the 1 mile limit. Davis was so small there couldn’t be any bars or liquor stores, so students would jump into their cars and drive to the next town to get plastered. (Good thinking, politicians!). It is still illegal to serve alcohol in any public school building, even at night with no minors present.
When I was an exchange teacher in London, I expressed surprise that beer, wine and hard liquor were being served at the teachers’ Christmas lunch, and explained why to my colleagues. One of them said, “Oh, we sent all our Puritans to you.”
The Brits, however, have had their own run with controlling alcohol sales. When we arrived for our year, in 1994, no alcohol could be sold on Sundays. The booze sections of supermarkets were curtained off. Then, during that year, sales became permissible after 12 noon. I believe it’s now 24/7.
The poster above is correct about the motivation behind U.S. Prohibition. I’ll just add that it was also anti-Catholic. Remember, the Italian and Irish immigrant Catholics were the despised minorities of the time. The upper crust women, who embraced Prohibition, were also, often, Suffragettes. They got hoisted on their own petards, so to speak, when much of the opposition to votes for women was based on the belief that they were anti-alcohol. After Prohibition was enacted, women did gain the vote because that argument was moot.