May 25, 2021
The Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines of the Year is among the most anticipated announcements in the wine world every December. The wineries on the list promote their place on the list and consumers comb through the list to see which they’d like to try. It’s an important list. If HB 210, Delaware’s proposed wine shipping law, is passed, fully 71 of the 100 wines on the 2020 list will be banned from shipment into the state of Delaware. You…
May 24, 2021
You can sign for a bottle of Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir, but not for a bottle of Argentine Malbec. You can receive multiple shipments of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon at your door, but you can’t sign for a shipment of Austrian Riesling. You can get excited about that receiving a shipment of Oregon Chardonnay, but no shipments of Champagne will arrive to brighten your smile. This is the world of wine shipping imagined and promoted by HB 210, a proposed…
May 16, 2021
It’s a felony to lie under oath to Congress. However, it is not against the law to lie to Congress in a letter to its members. This is the only reason why the heads of the National Beer Wholesalers Association, the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers Association, the American Beverage Licensees and the American Distillers Alliance have not been brought up on federal charges. As part of their successful attempt to kill the amendment to the U.S. Postal Service Reform Act…
Apr 21, 2021
Beginning in March 2020, American wineries began to see the impact on direct-to-consumer shipments due to pandemic lockdowns and isolating inside our homes. We are just now beginning to see a hint of what a post-pandemic DTC market can look like. The beginnings of the pandemic led to a 30% year-over-year increase in winery shipments in March 2020. The March 2020 thirty-percent increase in the volume of shipments far exceeded the average monthly increases seen in previous months of March….
Apr 2, 2021
The wine wholesalers in Michigan are concerned. VERY VERY concerned. According to the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association as presented in a breathless editorial in The Detroit News, “It’s estimated that…more than 730,000 bottles of wine, were illegally shipped into the state” in 2019.” Of course, we can’t verify this claim as the data they base it upon is not published by the wholesalers. No matter. According to this association of box carriers, this profoundly important discovery “robs Michigan…