Archive for the ‘Shipping Wine’ Category
Who makes a difference and how do they do it? This has been the primary question that has defined my experience to this point working with Specialty Wine Retailers Association as their executive director. In the course of four short months this organization of progressive wine merchants has found themselves in political and legislative battles in four states. SWRA’s record this year in fighting to open markets for the folk that provide wine to consumers is 1-0-2. Without getting into…
The Specialty Wine Retailers Association (SWRA) is opposing Illinois legislation that would prohibit all retailers across the country from shipping wine to consumers in that state. The legislation, HB 429, is expected to be debated in the Illinois legislature late this week. While the legislation has the support of numerous winery associations in California because it maintains winery shipping rights, SWRA believes this kind of anti-competitive legislation hurts the entire wine industry, not to mention Illinois consumers. HB 429 creates…
How could it be that nearly every alcohol-related law and regulation across America favors the interests of a small number of middlemen called "Wholesalers" or "Distributors? Consider for example the various laws across the country that attempt to restrict consumers from purchasing and have shipped to them wine except from smaller wineries that produce only small amount of wine and in effect forcing medium and large wineries to sell to a middleman in order to get their wines to market…
Here’s a little trick for evaluating the true concerns of an organization associated with wine: compare the things they like to talk about VERSUS those things they DON’T talk about. Take the Wine & Spirit Wholesalers Association as an example. The other day they issued a press release that breathlessly and near hysterically denounced all on-line retailers for the way they sell wine. The organization’s president Craig Wolf said this: "On-line retailers are playing fast and loose with alcohol laws…
Here’s an interesting question:When you buy a case of wine over the Internet from a winery website and when you buy a case of wine over the Internet from a wine shop website, are the two transactions different in any substantial way? We are finding that both wine distributors and state alcohol regulators are attempting to make the case that they are substantially different transactions. In fact, according to these two groups, these two transaction are so different that the…
