Archive for the ‘Three Tier System’ Category

Jan 4, 2022

Keeping Corruption in Wine in Place: Campaign Contributions

Twenty twenty-one (2021) was a non-election year. It was also the first of the traditional two-year election cycle. This year is the second of the two-year election cycle, an important election year, and it is the year that campaign contributions really pour in. I note this because what I’m about to show you is really a pittance; a drop in the bottle, so to speak. American alcohol wholesalers have nearly completely captured the lawmaking process when it comes to alcohol….

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…

Dec 8, 2021

What Has Been Confirmed and Learned in My 16th Year of Wine Writing

Having just completed my 16th year publishing FERMENTATION, I look back at these past 12 months and, as is my tradition, seek to understand what I’ve learned or confirmed about wine, my industry, and its people in the course of my reading and writing and living. These are those things. CONFIRMED: Wine Communications Remains Vibrant: When I think “Wine Communications” I’m thinking real writers and media, not influencers. I’m thinking about the emergence of The Drop, From Pix. I’m thinking…

Nov 16, 2021

Wine and Spirit Wholesalers: Profiles In Whining

Imagine being such a whiner that you felt it necessary to issue a press release to say just how much you didn’t like an article that didn’t include your unsubstantiated propaganda. Meet the Wine & Spirit Wholesalers of America, the greatest source of tears and whining in the alcohol biz. The WSWA’s recent press release condemning a Daily Beast article by Susannah Skiver Barton takes issue with the fact that the WSWA’s position on interstate shipment of spirits was “misrepresented”….

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…