Archive for the ‘Three Tier System’ Category
“Public health and safety”. It is the new mantra that wine and spirit wholesalers around the country are whispering into the ears of lawmakers, judges, the media and alcohol regulators. Not too many years ago, you didn’t hear wholesalers beat the drum of “health and safety” as they opposed efforts to reform a decades-old distribution system that was creaking and ossified but built to keep those alcohol wholesalers in control of just about everything. Today, “health and safety” all you…
This is why I’m absolutely positive that large swaths of consumers across the country will eventually have access to wines via retailer-to-consumer shipment: “FAKE ALCOHOL AND INTERSTATE E-COMMERCE“. This is a new “white paper” from the “Center For Alcohol Policy”, which is a front group for the National Beer Wholesalers Association that attempts to look like a neutral party simply wanting to get to the bottom of alcohol policy. While ostensibly focused on the dangers of “fake alcohol”, this paper…
You are a small producer of wine. Say, 5,000 cases. What can you expect from working with a distributor? This is an important question that will be addressed at the upcoming 3-Tier Symposium being produced by Wine Industry Network in May. As a reminder, here is the basic conditions under which a wine producer must work in order to see their products end up on the shelves of a retailer or the list of a restaurant in another state via…
After working on behalf of clients, my time is often taken up with attention paid to those issues and items in the wine world that most significantly impact my industry and my life. In 2019 there were many wine issues and items that consistently captured my attention. Going forward into 2020, many of these issues should attract your attention too. The Aggregators For those of us who closely follow the wine news and news of the industry, the aggregators have…
There is an unusual collaboration and coherence among America’s alcohol beverage producers at this moment when it comes to politics. Just about everyone, from distillers to brewers to wineries—of every size—are lobbying federal lawmakers seeking an extension or permanent status to the current federal alcohol excise tax. It’s about the money, as it usually is. I don’t have a strong opinion on the propriety of making permanent the lower federal alcohol excise tax rate arrived at two years ago. However,…
