Posts Tagged ‘wine wholesalers’
a Press Democrat writes a very nice round up story today on the state of direct shipment of wine a year after the historic Granholm V. Heald Supreme Court decision. What caught my eye was the very end of the story where the President of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers Association, Juanita Duggan, identified with this quote:"the justices’ opinion that states could find other ways to enforce underage drinking laws in an era of direct shipping of wine doesn’t sway…
Here’s good news… The Florida legislature has apparently refused to pass a bill that would have put a cap on the size of the winery that is allowed to ship wine to Florida consumers. The Florida House passed a bill restricting direct shipping only to those wineries that produced 250,000 gallons of wine annually or less. The cap provision is protectionism, pure and simple. It is a provision that protects large distributors from having to compete with the convenience that…
We are in for years of wine-shipping and wine sales related litigation. Years! Maryland wineries and wine distributors have apparently agreed on a compromise that will allow that state’s wineries to continue to sell direct to restaurants and retailers and bypassing wholesalers and distributors altogether. The compromise was necessary when the state’s comptroller ruled last June that allowing Maryland wineries to do this violated the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution because out of state wineries did not have the…
Continuing FERMENTATION’s look at money, wine and politics, we turn in this post to the money spent on political campaigns at the state level. It is here, in the individual states, where nearly all legislation and regulations concerning alcohol, its production, its sales and its distribution is undertaken. Between 2004 and 2006, contributions to state level political campaigns from beer, wine and spirit concerns totaled $21,362,727. The overwhelming majority of this money comes from distributors and wholesalers of alcohol. This…
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.
