Alert: Obscure But Important Wine Law Info

Posted by Tom Wark on Mar 27, 2012

ALERT!

Unless you have an unusually deep interest in the alcohol legal theory, the constitutional foundations of the Three-Tier System or wine politics, then you should probably maneuver away from this blog post.

In my most recent post on Health care, the Supreme Court and Wine, I made passing reference to excellent recent scholarship on the issue of legal issues surrounding the three tier system and the how the courts have addressed these issues. I wanted to highlight this scholarship in a full blog post to give those interested an easy way to access said scholarship

Uncorking Granholm: Extending the Nondiscrimination Principle to all Interstate Commerce in Wine
By Kevin Quigley, Boston College Law Review

Discarding the North Dakota Dictum: An Argument for Strict Scrutiny of the Three-Tier Distribution System
By Ann Murphy, Michigan Law Review

As you can see, both these articles come from the Law Reviews of two different law schools. Both address the response to the 2005 Granholm v. Heald Supreme Court decision, the way this decision has been interpreted by the courts and a way forward to clarify the meaning of Granholm.

This is dense stuff and will appeal primarily to lawyers, those involved in the politics of wine and those who have been involved in legal cases concerning the three tier system and the Granholm decision. However, taken together they make an outstanding case for a specific understanding of principles that ought to be at the heart of alcohol beverage jurisprudence, the correct perspective on the limits of the Three Tier System and a legal way forward for consumers and industry members seeking a more equitable distribution of opportunity within the traditional alcohol beverage market.

If you have gotten this far through this post, then I recommend you taking a whack at these two articles. They are outstanding.