Archive for the ‘Shipping Wine’ Category

Dec 30, 2021

The Worst Things In Wine in 2021

I look back at 2021 and see a year of progress in the wine industry. Granted, this isn’t a difficult position to take if we are comparing this year to 2020. Still, 2021 looks like a year of recovery, and there were positive moves in the regulatory and legal spheres. That said, I wouldn’t want to be accused of being a pollyanna. There are things going on in wine in 2021 that were not so great. These are the worst…

Oct 7, 2021

Retailer Wine Shipping Has NO RELATIONSHIP TO the Three-Tier System

Tomorrow the United States Supreme Court is scheduled to meet in conference and consider a petition that the Court hear a retailer wine shipping case out of Missouri and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. The case is a familiar one. Missouri allows its own wine retailers to ship to Missouri residents but bans out-of-state retailers from doing the same. While not impossible, it is unlikely the Court will take the case. Yet because the implications of the Court agreeing…

Aug 2, 2021

How Grammar Will Have a Multi-Billion Dollar Impact on Wine Sales

Over the past two months, I’ve seen at least four examples of people arguing that banning out-of-state wine retailers from shipping into a state advances a state’s goal of protecting the health and safety of its citizens. The bans on retailer wine shipping do this, it is argued, because it helps keep lower-priced wines out of the states’ markets, which, in turn, lowers consumption of alcohol. This argument leads us to a very important question: What is the difference between…

Jul 15, 2021

Winery’s Use of Fulfillment Houses Is Illegal?

Wineries’ use of fulfillment houses to store, pack, label boxes and prepare wines for shipment to consumers is illegal. Who knew?? Try to imagine the logistic of wine shipping if producers were required by destination states to store, pack and arrange shipments of wine to consumers from their own bonded facilities, instead of contracting with fulfillment houses. How much more expensive would this make DTC shipping? How much more space would wineries and bonded facilities require to undertake shipments? Sound…

Jul 14, 2021

Can We Agree That Alcohol and Lies Don’t Pair Well?

My argument is a simple one: In advancing or promoting or opposing any alcohol-related policy, you should tell the truth. The corollary to this position is equally simple: Don’t lie. I focus on this position today in response to a common lie that has been resurrected in opposing the proposal to allow the U.S. Postal Service to ship alcohol and augment their revenue in doing so. Below is the #1 argument put forward by a former alcohol regulator from Oregon…