The Case For Trying To Understand Wine Law

Posted by Tom Wark on Mar 8, 2012

For those of you who appreciate the more arcane in the wine blogging world, for lawyers who like wine, for wine industry compliance professionals, for those inclined toward the politics of wine, and for those that just like to dive really, really deep into the minutiae of wine legal issues, I suggest something new:

The Libation Law Blog

It's pretty new. Eleven posts so far. But the quality of the posts and the thoughtfulness that author Ashley Brandt puts into each is pretty impressive. What caught my eye was Mr. Brandt's commentary on a relatively recent ruling out of the 7th Circuit Court of appeals that speaks to Indiana's ban on wine stores using common carriers to deliver wine. This is an important case and I've been spending a good amount of time studying it for a variety of implications it could hold. Also, it was written by one of America's most prolific judge/author Richard Posner.

In any case, the number of blogs that deal with the legal and compliance aspects of the wine world seem to grow steadily. The problem for their authors is that their potential audience is pretty small, even for the wine blogging world.

Still, I can't emphasize enough how important it is for folks who work in one of the highly regulated industries in America to keep an eye on the political and legal machinations that are constantly at play in the industry. It's really a responsibility to yourself. I promise that if you stay in the industry long enough you will find yourself confronted with a complex but critical legal or compliance issue.

And for wine writers and wine educators, continuing education in the realm of wine law and compliance is a pretty good idea. There are a tremendous number of fascinating stories out there that revolve around the world of wine law and wine compliance that consumers would relate to and even find fascinating, were the issues able to be simply explained to them. Simply explaining the complex isn't an easy thing to do.

Ashley Brandt does a pretty good job of it at The Libation Law Blog and he is writing for colleagues and the wine legal geek among us. That's impressive.

And of course what makes Brandt's blog stand out is that when he writes about the legal issues in the wine industry he comes at it from a reportage perspective, rather than, say, a polemicists perspective such as mine. Of course Mr. Brandt is a lawyer. Still, that doesn't seem to get in his way.

Put Libation Law Blog on your radar.