(Startribune) - When the national retailer Total Wine & More opened a store in Burnsville last September, Brenda Visnovec expected the three city-owned liquor stores she oversees in nearby Lakeville to feel some competitive pressure.

She didn’t expect them to get called out in ads in the suburban newspaper.

“Hey Lakeville! Save at the Burnsville Total Wine & More!” beckoned a headline in a December ad that showed how the prices of 18 products were lower at Total Wine than Lakeville Liquor. “In the past, ads didn’t intentionally target someone,” Visnovec said.

In the 15 months since Total Wine arrived in the Twin Cities, consumers have flocked to its stores and unleashed competitive forces that the state’s clubby industry of liquor dealers had long ago locked up.

Prices for beer, wine and spirits have plunged around the metro area, and product selection has grown at a number of stores. A few sellers have closed, including, just last week, craft beer specialist the Four Firkins. Others have fiercely fought back, taking advantage of Minnesota’s quirky liquor laws that exposed Total Wine’s playbook in a way unseen in any of 15 other states where it operates.

Consumers are the beneficiaries. Ian Madison, of Eden Prairie, still shops his city’s municipal store for convenience, but he said local consumers have overpaid for alcohol for too long. “I pay $55 for a bottle of Veuve Clicquot [champagne] at most stores, but Total has it for $37,” he said of the Bloomington store.

Executives of Potomac, Md.-based Total Wine say early results in Minnesota are particularly strong. Sales at each of the four Minnesota locations that Total Wine has opened so far rank in the top 20 of the company’s 117 outlets.

But the state also presents some competitive difficulties that don’t exist elsewhere. Minnesota’s existing liquor sellers have been able to gain unusual insight into Total Wine’s business because of a state law prohibiting liquor retailers from making deals to exclusively sell any alcoholic product. Instead, liquor must be sold through a distributor that every retailer can access.

That means all of Total Wine’s products, including its private-label Winery Direct and Spirit Direct items, can be ordered and sold by any Minnesota liquor store. Any Minnesota liquor dealer can also see Total Wine’s wholesale prices.

The law is part of a broader regulatory structure that was built over decades to ensure that smaller sellers of alcohol products won’t fall prey to larger competitors and to carve out room for both municipal and private dealers.

Minnesota’s laws and competitive practices are “very unusual,” Total Wine chief executive David Trone said, adding they allow competitors to access the pricing model and exclusive deals that he calls the company’s intellectual property. “I don’t buy Haskell’s, Surdyk’s or Costco’s brands. We respect those relationships.”