The issue of direct shipments by retailers to consumers has become a very hot topic of late. As of today, retailers can ship to less than half of the number of states to which producing wineries can ship. The Specialty Wine Retailers Association is fighting hard with both legislative efforts and litigation to open more states for retail to consumer shipments. The heated battle in Illinois, where out-of-state retailers recently lost the ability to ship to consumers under HB 429, raised national awareness to this issue.

The fundamental question is whether the decision in Granholm v. Heald that said states must treat in-state and out-of-state wineries evenhandedly should also apply to in-state and out-of-state retailers. R. Corbin Houchins recently made two posts (September 18th and October 5th) that do an excellent job of highlighting the legal questions that come into play when attempting to extend Granholm to retailers. In his October 5th post, Mr. Houchins indicates his disagreement with the reasoning of the recent and important Arnold’s Wines v. Boyle opinion, which upheld discrimination against out-of-state retailers in New York.

READ FULL ARTICLE…

Discuss this article in our Wine Marketing Forums!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 7:07 pm and is filed under Distribution Laws, Wine Sales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Other Network Sites: Wine Reviews, Ratings & Wine Prices | Wine Videos | Wine SEO

Advertisement