Wine, Technology and Shipping

Posted by Tom Wark on May 23, 2005

The most common reasons given to oppose direct shipping are 1) it will make alcohol more accessible to minors, 2) taxes will not be collected, and 3) the state loses control over it’s ability to assure the integrity of the product.

Number three hasn’t been a problem since, well, since I don’t know when. When was the last time you heard of any state agency discovering a wine that was harmful to one’s health. Reason number two is legitimate. Reason number 1 must be dealt with. It’s sort of like having earthquake insurance on your house in Texas, however. While it’s highly unlikely that minors are going to try to have wine shipped to them, when it does happen you’ll be happy there is a system in place to deal with the consequences.

A company called IDology that provides age and identification confirmation services has developed technology to address the issue. Wine.com used the IDology system and is apparently very happy with it.

I’m aware of another system similar to this that works in the same way and was developed specifically to deal with alcohol sales.

Perhaps technology will address the bogus issue that technology originally spawned.