Archive for the ‘Wine Legal Battles’ Category
An opportunity to open the State of South Dakota for direct to consumer wine shipping failed recently when Senate Bill 114 died in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. As a result, 11 states still prohibit winery-to-consumer shipping and 35 states still prohibit retailer to consumer shipping. Despite South Dakota not being the most populous state in the country nor a particularly important wine drinking state, the defeat of the most recent wine shipping bill there is the kind of…
Since 2005 when the Supreme Court issued its Granholm v. Heald ruling on wine shipments and the Commerce Clause, a significant black market in wine has arisen. This black market in wine allows consumers in 35 states to easily and illegally purchase wine from out of state sources that according to these states’ laws is illegal. Law breaking is a risky business. The potential law-breakers must weigh the consequences of getting caught versus the benefits of successfully avoiding detection of…
Eric Asimov regularly reminds us why his 2004 ascension to “Chief Wine Critic” at the New York Times was a good idea. The reminder almost always comes in the form of the enthusiasm that is exhibited in his writing on wine. But just as important, Asimov possesses an almost intuitive sense for what is the right question to ask. This important aspect of Asimov’s approach to wine reporting was on display today when the headline over his weekly column read:…
In 1933, the state of Kentucky reacted to the end of Prohibition by passing a law that allowed wine and spirits to be sold in pharmacies, but not in grocery stores—where only low alcohol beer could be sold. The idea was that by segregating this “strong” form of alcohol in the relatively low trafficked pharmacy where drugs and prescriptions were sold and keeping it out of the high trafficked grocery stores where people bought their food and which were considered…
“A lot of people who live here are concerned it will become a monoculture of retail locations, and wine tasting and wine bars.” This is the sentiment behind a move in my former home, the town of Sonoma, to restrict the number and type of wine tasting rooms that live on or near the town plaza. This article details what will certainly evolve into a major controversy in Sonoma between the idiots and the non-idiots. The folks behind the effort…
