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Saturday, September 06, 2008

Ind. Law - More on "Wine-shipping rules still not settled"

Updating this ILB entry from Aug. 23rd, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette's Dan and Krista Stockman write today in their column, "Uncorked":

Two weeks ago, we gave an update on the state of shipping wine directly from wineries to wine lovers.

But because the issue is so complicated, we had to stick to the highlights.

A long and interesting report follows, I'll just touch on a few items:
The first catch in the whole shipping debate is that it only involves wineries. So while there’s lots of legal hoops to jump through to order wine directly from a winery, at least there’s a process. If you want to order from a wine store, it’s illegal. * * *

Getting wine from wine stores matters because you cannot buy many wines any other way. For example, a few years ago Krista got Dan a bottle of Port from the year he was born. You can’t buy it anywhere except stores that specialize in old bottles. Under Indiana’s laws, you’re out of luck if you want one, and the issue of shipping from stores wasn’t even touched by the courts.

Which leads us to the other problem with Indiana’s shipping laws, which also wasn’t touched by the courts: Wineries can’t get a direct-shipping permit if they already have products distributed in the state by a wholesaler.

That means if you’re looking for a limited-production wine from a big winery, like Kendall-Jackson’s $100 a bottle Bordeaux blend Stature, you’re out of luck. Because Kendall-Jackson’s wines are distributed by wholesalers in Indiana, they can’t ship you a bottle of Stature, even though Stature may not be distributed by wholesalers in the state.

Granted, most reputable wine stores will order wines for you if they don’t carry it in the store, but they’re limited, too – they can only order what their wholesalers carry.

Which leads us back to our point two weeks ago: how silly the appellate court’s decision to uphold Indiana’s face-to-face requirement, which says that wineries, both in state and out-of-state, can only ship wine directly to an Indiana customer if they first have a face-to-face transaction with them.

The appellate court said the provision passes legal muster because it doesn’t directly discriminate against out-of-state wineries and even if it does indirectly, it doesn’t do it enough to outweigh the state’s desire to keep minors from buying alcohol. Here’s the rub: Minors don’t buy alcohol online. * * *

Which, again, leaves us where we started. With most of a bad law still intact, our only hopes lie with the General Assembly fixing the law or the courts throwing it out. But the General Assembly is obviously beholden to wholesalers and their huge political contributions, while the courts’ decisions are so scattershot that minors have a better chance scoring beer from the corner liquor store.

Cheers!

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 6, 2008 02:12 PM
Posted to Indiana Law