Drink me but don’t ship me

by admin

For the majority of my adult life I have been around wine, wine enthusists, and assorted wine accoutrements. In other words, wine has been somewhat of a non-issue for me. The regular joke is that “wine is a condiment around here”. Recently however I went to a wine festival in Maryland and stumbled across a sign that absolutely floored me, “Why is it a felony to ship wine to Maryland?”

A felony? Seriously?

I wrapped up my day shortly after and went home to investigate. As it turns out, it is in fact a felony to ship wine to Maryland. I have found a few reasons cited, some usual suspects such as “minors will get easier access to alcohol”, and “we cannot tax it”. Essentially however it would seem that the primary blockade is due to a three-tier distribution system that requires all people purchase through this system.

Remove outright greed, or rather, fear of loosing their free meal ticket, how about the obvious fact that the law makes no sense. Case in point, I can go to any one (or 10 for that matter) of the numerous wineries in the state of Maryland (there are over 300 wines in the state) and bring home all the wine my car can carry. Hell, I can strap it to the roof if I so chose. But that last one I just can’t fit unless I kick aunt Esther out of the car to make room, well ship that home and I can be slapped with a felony. Imagine for a moment answering that question on the next job interview questionnaire.

Interview question: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? If so, please explain

You: Yes. Well, you see, I purchased a bottle of wine and shipped it to my house. The end.

I write this fully understanding the complexities involved with keeping laws in line with the thinking of the modern times. Time after time you read of laws made in another era that simply do not apply currently culture or thinking yet remain on the books for any number of reasons. That being said, I am constantly struck by the sheer lack of validity when it comes to laws the prevent rational, law-abiding, tax-paying, responsible members of society from doing (or in this case purchasing) something based on another group’s interests. In this case, a network of in-state distributors who do not wish to relinquish their piece of the pie.

We live in an internet world. No longer do you have to leave your house to seek products you desire. This is a reality, not a futuristic view of what might be. This is the new truth so why not embrace it? The amount of money we spend as a nation on preventing such things that cannot be prevented instead of using that energy to captialize on it simply amazes me. In doing research for this it turns out that at least six states (Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee and Utah) do this.

While I could go on and on about why I disagree I will sum it up by stating that it is infuriating that as an adult I cannot ship wine to my home if I lived in one of six states that deemed it inappropriate to do so. Choice is a fundamental cornerstone of our country. For adults, wine is not illegal to buy or dink. So to make it illegal to choose to buy wine and ship it to my house seems a bit archaic and it should probably be thought about a bit more. I truly look forward to a day when we as a race finally come to our senses and realize that we have bigger fish to fry.

For more information on shipping laws in your state you can visit this site which does a great job of listing them out for you:

http://www.wineinstitute.org/initiatives/stateshippinglaws

For a slightly more succinct version you can go here:

http://www.winespectator.com/Wine/Features/0,1197,1059,00.html

If you want to do something about your state this organization is full steam ahead on getting these outdated laws off the books:

http://www.freethegrapes.org/

June 22nd, 2009  |   8:00 am