Archive for the ‘Wine Legal Battles’ Category

Jan 11, 2022

Where Is Alcohol E-Commerce Going and Where Has It Been?

Rabobank’s latest report on Alcohol e-commerce shows that such transactions reached $6 Billion in 2021, a 131% increase in just two years. Now, this $6 billion figure includes e-com sales of wine, beer, spirits and everything else. But the question that goes unanswered is to what degree do e-com sales of alcohol help increase the total sales of alcohol? In the press release announcing the new Rabobank report (2022 Alcohol E-commerce Playbook) the report’s author, Bourcard Nesin, answers this important…

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…

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”….

Nov 14, 2021

Let’s Discuss Lowering the Legal Drinking Age

It has been years since any state seriously considered raising the age at which it is legal to drink. But it’s notable that for decades that age was not near what the mark is today in all states. Most would consider it folly to make an attempt to lower the legal drinking age. And I understand that. But I’m not one of those who think it is a bad idea. And now it appears that there are others who also…

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…