Winebits 519: Legal weed, Canadian wine laws, Warren Winiarski

This week’s wine news: Legal weed could be worth $10 billion in the U.S. by 2021, plus Canada’s shipping laws go on trial and Warren Winarski talks wine

• Billions and billions: Nestled in a CNN story about legal weed in Canada – the country’s retailers could start selling it in July – is this estimate of how much the business will be worth in here in a few years: “$7.1 billion to $10.3 billion in the U.S. by 2021, according to Marijuana Business Daily.” By comparison, wine sales in the U.S. were $38 billion in 2016, so the value of legal weed, in just a handful of states, could be almost one-third of wine sales. That’s a stunning statistic, and one more reason why then wine business needs to take the challenge legal weed poses to its growth and success.

• In the courts: The laws that govern inter-provincial wine shipments in Canada faced a court test last week, and would that the Wine Curmudgeon could have written that line about the three-tier system in the U.S. But our northern neighbors always seem more sensible about these things. Interestingly, the case is based on incident that we know all too well here – can a consumer buy alcohol in one province and legally transport it to another province? In other words, interstate shipping, which is mostly illegal in the U.S. Obviously, whatever Canada’s Supreme Court decides will have no legal weight here, but one would like to think that a favorable decision will offer food for thought in the U.S.

• So says Warren: One of the great joys of my time with the blog has been knowing Warren Winarski, one of the pioneers of Napa Valley wine. This story, from the Napa Valley Register, helps to explain why. Warren’s vision of what California wine could be, when most people thought wine should be made in France, is what sticks with me: “It gradually dawned on me that [winemaking in California] has to be brought back and restored. That America should be a wine-drinking country.”