Tag Archives: liquor law

Winebits 452: Wine advice, consolidation, liquor law

wine adviceThis week’s wine news: Why wine advice sometimes goes astray, plus winery consolidation and more silly liquor laws

• Way more than I need to know: Should wine be chilled? That’s a fair question, and one I get a lot. But does it need 700 words for the answer? I mention this not to be snarky, but to point out that one of the most common complaints I get is that the wine business makes wine too complicated. And writing almost 700 words about something that can be answered in three or four sentences is just one more example of that problem. How are we going to convince ordinary wine drinkers, who might buy couple of bottles a month, that wine is fun and that they should drink more if we can’t explain wine to them in simple, direct language? And, to add insult to injury, the piece in the link includes a recommendation for orange wine.

• Fewer and getting bigger: The mainstream business press has picked up on winery consolidation, and this article from Forbes does a good job of explaining what’s going on. It even focuses on the importance of distributor consolidation as part of the winery buyouts: “With better, more robust representation of specific appellations and regions under one ownership umbrella, larger groups of wine brands with the same ownership become more attractive to large distributors looking to expand their own portfolios.” In other words, the new big is about getting bigger, since it benefits both Big Wine and Big Distribution.

• What was your address again? No, the U.S. isn’t the only country with odd liquor laws. Right, Canada? “An Ontario winery no longer has to keep its location a secret after a tribunal ruled against the province’s wine authority.” The story details why the winery couldn’t put its address on its website until the ruling, which involves the a specific Canadian example of enforcing appellation regulations.

Texas and the Walmart lawsuit

Walmart Texas lawsuitThree things are certain in Texas – the Cowboys, brutal summers, and the god-like power of the Texas Package Stores Association, the trade group that represents the state’s liquor store owners. The package store lobby is why liquor stores are closed on Sunday, why we have unbelievably restrictive laws on liquor store ownership, and why we have a fourth tier in the three-tier system.

All that may be about to change.

Later this year, a federal judge could overturn the ownership laws, and once that happens, many of the other restrictions could end, too. We might be able to buy wine in the grocery store before noon on Sunday or even – God forbid – spirits. And yes, that would be like a 72-degree day here in August, and where it gets chilly enough at night to need a jacket.

I never thought this would happen, but after talking to a variety of people who follow Texas liquor law, it looks like the unthinkable will take place. The package store owners, who have pretty much vetted the state’s liquor laws since the early 1970s, will have to compromise or lose all of the advantages they’ve written for themselves.

More, after the jump: Continue reading →

Winebits 329: Legal affairs edition

Winebits 329: Legal affairs editionBecause the Wine Curmudgeon is always amused by the legal side of the wine business:

? Blame it on Utah: The Wine Curmudgeon has first-hand experience with Utah’s liquor laws, thanks to a story I wrote about the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. But not even I was ready for this excellent piece of reporting by Nancy Lofholm in The Denver Post. How about eight different liquor licenses? Or that some establishments have to have a barrier between customers and the bartender, and that others don’t — even if they have the same license? But don’t worry too much. Says one Utah tourism official: “We are not the only state with peculiar liquor laws.”

? Scores don’t matter: Or, did a New York judge tell a wine drinker that a high score can’t be the basis for suing about wine quality? There are many ways to interpret the decision, in which a Manhattan judge dismissed a lawsuit (requires free registration) in which a consumer wanted a refund from a wine store because he didn’t like the six bottles of 91-point wine he bought. The judge wrote that wine taste is subjective, and so can’t be the basis for a lawsuit. I know the wine in question, a decent enough bottle of Rioja, but one that’s probably not worth the $12.99 the consumer paid. Damn those scores anyway.

? Questioning three-tier? Or so says this post from the Libation Law blog, analyzing a New Jersey court decision that said “New Jersey’s liquor control laws and regulations must be administered in the light of changing conditions.” Which, of course, is what those of us who want to reform the three-tier system have been saying for years: That a system put in place at the end of Prohibition to keep the mob out of liquor has outlived its reason for being. The decision, which dealt with distributors and how they paid commission, is esoteric, but Ashley Brandt at Libation is optimistic that it “strengthens the argument that a vigilant regulatory system can uncover and prohibit the practices that people claim the three-tiered system was meant to forestall.” The Wine Curmudgeon, with his vast legal experience (a semester of First Amendment law in college) isn’t quite so sure, but who am I to ruin a good mood?