Mar 9, 2006
Thomas over at the Oklahoma Wine News has an excellent post about the wholesalers attempt to kill that state’s growing wine industry by taking away their rights to sell direct to retailers and restaurants. If you are a winery owner and are not yet having to fight this battle yet you probably should start gearig up. The fight is coming to a legislature near you, and soon.
Mar 9, 2006
The most compelling argument that can be made in favor of shutting down direct shipping from wineries to consumers and retailers is not that minors might get their hands on alcohol. It’s that out-of-state wineries might evade paying state taxes and the state would lose important revenue. Have you ever seen the reaction of a state agency or state legislator when faced with the prospect of having less money to play with. It’s the mother bear syndrome. Get out of…
Mar 8, 2006
The battles over direct shipment of wine across state borders has largely been a fight between wineries and wine wholesalers, the former wanting the right to ship wine direct while the latter hoping to stop it all together. What’s been missing from the discussion has been the voice of wine retailers. That’s likely to change with the creation of the Specialty Wine Retailers Association. The creation of a number of companies that rely on direct shipping, SWRA will work to…
Mar 6, 2006
Wine wholesalers talk a different language from you and I that needs translating. And they’ve been doing a lot of talking recently. In states across the country, the wholesalers have realized that it’s unconstitutional to allow in-state wineries to sell direct to retailers and restaurant, but not allow out of state wineries to do so. So, they started to try to strip this privilege from small wineries to prevent out of state (read: California) wineries from legally bypassing them. In…
Mar 3, 2006
The most controversial political issue in Illinois over the past few months has apparently come to an end with a compromise struck between Illinois 63 wineries and the states’ wine and beer wholesalers. The upshot of the compromise is wineries in Illinois and across the country will have the right, after payng for a license, to ship up to 12 cases per year to an individual, while Illinois wineries have lost their right to sell direct to retailers and restaurateurs….