For nearly the last decade, the direct shipping issue has been framed as a consumer issue. And largely it was. Consumers wanted the right to buy wine from whatever source they desired. Indeed, wineries wanted the right to sell them that wine too. That’s all changed since the Supreme Court’s Heald v Granholm decision in May. Now the battled has become one focused on industry interests primarily. Like the previous battle, consumers are in the mix, but it’s the industry…

Hoyt Hill, wine writer for the The City Paper, reports the following information: –Thirty percent of the wine sold in the United States is distributed by one wholesaler, Southern Wine and Spirits, and, in the states where Southern Wine and Spirits actually does business, they distribute more than 70 percent of the wine sold? –Approximately 80 percent of the wine produced in Australia is made by three companies? Approximately 70 percent of the wine produced in California is made by…

I don’t get it. Do French politicians think we can’t read, don’t read, or do they just not care? Jean-Claude Martinez, a politician and member of the extreme right wing French party National front from the south of France had this to say yesterday: "We have been making wine since the Roman Empire, and not for a couple of hundred years like the Americans. Wine is a civilization, it is a fine art." Fine art? Some of that dreg that…

Rep. Chis Ward is a Michigan politician that takes contributions from the Michigan Wine & Beer Wholesalers then writes laws for them. Ward has been the lead legislator when it came to revamping Michigan’s wine shipment laws in the face of that state’s defeat in trying to defend its discriminatory laws with regard to shipping wine to consumers. Ward finally sat for an interview with someone who knows wines, loves wine and sees through the blatant payoff that is the…