Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog

Napa Considering Its Future

If you ever doubted the veracity of the idiom, "Necessity is the mother of invention" then just read what the powers that be are considering in Napa.

After 20 years of living under the Winery Definition Ordinance that banned anything but "Appointment only Tastings" and weddings at wineries founded after 1989, there is consideration now of loosening those restrictions. Why? The economy sucks and many who previously saw no need to tempt a "Disneyland-like environment that many see as the natural outgrowth of easy tastings and weddings, are now thinking maybe we need to loosen restrictions on wineries to help them survive this downturn.

This is a very contentious issue in Napa Valley and Napa County. Many in and out of the wine industry fear that allowing too much "marketing" activity in agricultural zones will serve to threaten the agricultural nature of the Valley by encouraging development as well as by clogging the roads with even more cars filled with travelers who are only seeking their next taste of wine.

But then, again, the economy sucks!

From a political perspective, the question seems to be can the anti-development/pro-agriculture crowd come to terms with the pro-winery/pro-commercial group over how to allow greater commercial activity in ag zones.

The point is made by some that without unshackling the wineries so that they may be allowed to do more "marketing" on their land and in their winery, they may not survive. The point made by others is "give the wineries an inch and their lawyers will take a mile."

I look around and I see a lot of wine-related business, businesses that form the core of the economy in this region, hurting like they never have before. Many are being bought up by larger concerns. Others are going into bankruptcy. If there is not a way to give wineries more latitude to market in a way that encourages more sales and economic activity and to do so in a way that satisfies the pro-ag/anti-development crowd, then both sides ought to be ashamed of themselves. In an economy like this, where many people's livelihood and futures on the line, this is not the time to put your back against the wall and insist on the purity of your position.

I'm Thankful For...

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. In addition to providing the opportunity to pull out those "special occasion" wines I tend to look forward to opening, it is also the holiday best suited to my temperment, belief structure and inclinations toward feasting.

More importantly, it provides a symbolic pause in life's advance that enables me to formally and publicly give thanks. And there is a great deal for PR Guy and blogger to be thankful for.

I'M THANKFUL FOR...

...Having people in my life to share wine with

...Living a life that anyone would call blessed.

...Having enough talent to never fall prey to the dread that is dependency.

...Kathy

...Having this blog, though which I can explore my relationship with wine, culture, politics and myself.

...Every client Wark Communications has ever served

...Still being able to pull a few tap dancing moves out of my hat after all these years

...Being reminded that love is not just something at which cynics scoff.

...Karen and Alverna

...Cindy, Don, Jane, Jeff, Kevin, Lisa, Michelle, Robert, Sarah and Stewart, and Tori.

...Bucklin Old Hill Ranch Zinfandel.

...Getting my nose back after abusing it for 20 years

...the New Yorker Magazine

...Authentic Country Hams

...Modern medical miracles

...The comfort and bliss that comes with giving and receiving real affection

...Possessing much less concern today about what others think.

...Possessing the kind of hope necessary to continue to cheer for the San Francisco Giants

...Dark movie theaters, warm popcorn and a projector

...the memories I have of my parents.

...The readership of this blog

The Big (wine) Lie

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

JOSEPH GOEBBELS, Propaganda Minister Under Adolph Hitler

Collectively, American alcohol wholesalers act very much like Nazi leader Joseph Geobbels and certainly have adopted the strategy of the "Big Lie", described above as a means to deceive the people just long enough to assure that the consequences of the lie take their toll before the mortal enemy of the lie, truth, takes hold.

While the "Big Lie" that most alcohol wholesalers and many state alcohol regulators tell is that the three tier system of alcohol distribution is a great thing, the most important and damaging lies are those little ones that are more often told in support of the wholesaler monopoly.

THE BIG LIES

1. The Three Tier System Prevents Vertical Monopolies in the Alcohol Industry
Whether true or not, it is believed by most that the primary purpose of creating a three tier system at the end of Prohibition was to prevent vertical integration of the industry through cross ownerships between retailer and supplier. It is believed the three tier system was put in place to prevent retailers or restaurants from being "Tied" to large suppliers that could control them by virtue of ownership or influence. Fine. The big lie however is that a state mandated three tier system whereby alcohol must flow through wholesalers before getting to retailers, is necessary to prevent vertical integration or tied house influence. Simply passing a law that prohibits supplier ownership in restaurants and retail establishments would accomplish this. One need not give wholesalers a monopoly to prevent the abuses that allegedly took place prior to Prohibition

2. The Three Tier System Has Resulted In The Best Selection of Products of Any Marketplace in the World
Though the wholesalers claim this, the fact of the matter is that nothing about have a state-mandated three tier system contributes to providing a wide variety of products to consumers. In those markets where in fact consumers are lucky enough to find a variety of wine products that comes close to representing even 1/10th of the wines available in American, the fact that they have this kind of choice has nothing to do with the existence of the three tier system. Rather it has everything to do with the ingenuity of the producers and the retailers' acute awareness of consumer demand. The only reason wholesalers provide the small amount of choice in those markets that might seem to have greater choice of products is because there exists the number of producers to provide a larger choice and a savvy retailer class that demands the ability to meet consumer choice. Wholesalers, given their desires, would see as few brands as possible being distributed in markets. What truly gives consumers in any market real choice and selection is direct shipment rights by out-of-state wineries and retailers. And these rights are EXCEPTIONS to the strict rules of the three tier system.

3. The Tier System Prevents Sale of Alcohol To Minors
Goebbels would be proud of America's alcohol wholesalers for telling this lie. There is nothing about the existence of a state mandate that retailers buy their supply from wholesalers that has anything to do with minors attempting to obtain alcohol or actually obtaining it. Were wineries allowed to sell to wholesalers or directly to retailers as a matter of their own choice, you would see no difference whatsoever in the number of minors that drink alcohol or attempt to obtain alcohol. One has nothing to do with the other.

4. The Three Tier System Prevents Corruption and Coercion the Likes of Which Prompted the Original Adoption of the Three Tier System in the 1930s.
Any retailer or supplier playing in a market that has only 1 or 2 very large wholesalers that control those markets knows this is untrue. In fact, in those many states where two wholesalers dominate the industry, they control access to wine by the retailers and restaurants and they abuse that control through corrupt practices and by the natural corruption that results from monopolies. The wholesalers, in the most corrupt way, demands that retailers and restaurants buy a lot of wines they don't want in order to get the wines they do want. In addition there are many stories of the powerful wholesalers, upon hearing that a restaurant or retailer has begun buying wine from smaller upstart wholesalers, no longer services that account, leaving them without the majority of wines they need to buy. The only way this kind of power could be wielded and this kind of corruption could exist is if use of the wholesale tier was mandated by the state and made into a monopoly.

There are more "Big Lies", but these are among the worst and most often put forward by the proponents of the state-sponsored welfare for alcohol wholesalers known as the state mandated three tier system.

A Bad Wine Saga Ends!

  On October 15, 2005 more than 6 million bottles of wine stored at the Wine Central Warehouse in Vallejo were destroyed when Marc Anderson, a Sausalito, California business man set fire to the warehouse in order to destroy evidence of earlier crimes.

Entire inventories of wineries productions were destroyed as almost 100 wineries kept their inventories in the warehouse. In some cases, historic library collections of important California wineries were destroyed by heat damage. For the Northern California wine industry, Anderson's self-serving, desperate act was a devastating loss.

Today, under a plea agreement involving a 19 count federal indictment, Anderson pled guilty to the crime.

Now, I don't mean to suggest that this crime of arson, because it was wine that was destroyed and because I love wine, is a particularly terrible crime. I don't mean to diminish the impact of other types of crimes where lives are taken, for example. I only mean to suggest that the 20 some odd years in prison that Anderson will likely get as a result of being convicted not only of arson but also of mail fraud and tax evasion, are simply not enough.

The problem is, I have no idea what kind of prison term would be appropriate. Luckily, I'm not a judge. If it were me, I'd probably flip a coin: Heads it's life, tails it's it only until he dies.

What was shocking about this case at the time was not just the extent of the loss as the mass loss of wine became known, but the fact that this kind of cross industry loss is not often seen in the wine industry. Sometimes we hear about trucks carrying grapes tipping over on the highway. Sometimes we hear about tankers with wine crashing spilling 1000s of gallons of wine onto the highway. And occasionally you hear about a fire at a winery. You just don't' hear about 6 million bottles of wlne being destroyed.

In any case, we'll not hear much more about this story. Anderson pled guilty, he'll go to jail and the wineries that lost so much have plodded forward and done what they had to.

I just hope that those who did lose so much of what they had worked so hard to produce and preserve gain a little bit of solace from the fact that for the next 20 years Anderson will spend time sharing a shower and soap with some of the nicest guys in California. But I doubt it.

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QUITTING SMOKING UPDATE—DAY 23

There's no question about it, I'm on the downslope of working through the cravings and oral fixation that has been so difficult to deal with over the past 3 weeks. Today the occasional craving to light up and inhale smoke into my lungs still over comes me. In fact, it happens at least 10 times a day. But the cravings are far less severe now and last only momentarily. In addition, when distracted, when not writing about quitting smoking but thinking about other things, I don't think about smoking at all. As I've written before, the aroma seeking nose is back. However, I'm still waiting on the flavor detecting ability of my palate to become more acute. Bottom line: with the help of drugs, patches, candy and the support of friends, readers and another very important person, I'm pretty sure I"m a non-smoker.

Integrity—Bloodied and Scarred

I tend to talk a loud game here at Fermentation about the corruption that surrounds the politics of wine distribution. I tend to accuse politicians of being in some people's pockets on the issue of the three tier system. But rarely do I have the opportunity to point my readers to an example of integrity so obviously bloodied and scarred by bald faced corruption. Allow me.

Late last year, the state of Michigan lost a court battle in which they vigorously defended their discrimination against out-of-state wine stores. Michigan allowed in-state wine stores to ship wine to Michiganders. It allow in-state wineries to ship wine to Michiganders. And it allow out-of-state wineries to ship to Michiganders. But out-of-state wine merchants? They were prohibited.

The Federal District Court Judge told both the state of Michigan and the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association that their arguments in favor of denying adult consumers access to the wines they want and denying out-of-state wine merchants the right to fulfill Michigan consumers' demands was unconstitutional. The Judge, predictably, cited the Supreme Court decision and reasoning of Granholm v. Heald.

It was no surprise that the state appealed this decision to Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals where, I'm sure the Michigan wholesalers knew, their arguments in favor of blatant, anti-consumer discriminatory laws would be shot down by an even higher court. The problem the Michigan wholesalers in particular had was that a decision in favor of retailer direct shipping from an Appeals Court is a very powerful slap to their face and would have advanced the goal of allowing wine merchants outside Michigan and other states to be treated fairly where wine shipping was concerned.

So what happened? Rather than play out the Appeal, the Michigan Wholesalers decided to go to their bench. They decided rather than get a bad decision in a higher court, they'd fix their problem of having to compete on only a slightly more level playing field by getting a law passed that, while seemingly fair, would make sure there would be no retailer shipping at all in Michigan.

The Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers went to Representative Barbara Farrah and asked her to introduce a bill they had themselves written that would have banned ALL direct shipment of wine in Michigan by both in-state and out-of-state retailers, an approach to Direct Shipping policy that incredibly anti-consumer and anti-business, is constitutional.

The wholesalers also asked Representative Farrah to introduce this bill into a committee and to arrange to have that committee "hear" the bill without giving any notice to its opponents. Essentially, the wholesalers wanted to ram it through the Legislature under cover of darkness.

Representative Farrah did everything the Wholesalers asked. Everything.

Now, it just so happens that Representative Farrah counted Michigan Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association, the folks that  wrote the anti-consumer bill that was successful in killing retailer to consumer shipping in Michigan, as her largest campaign contributors during her three terms as a state Representative.

This was one of her last acts as a state representative. It also turns out she was a lame duck. Term limited out of office. Needing no more support from the Wholesalers, she could have done the right thing and denied the Michigan Wholesalers her involvement in screwing the consumers of Michigan and her representatives by engaging in a seriously dirty end run around representative government.

So why didn't she do the right thing? Because there was a job waiting for her after she left office.

Today, former Representative Barbara Farrah works for the Lansing lobbying firm "Governmental Consultant Services Inc." Imagine who one of their largest clients is:

The Michigan Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association, the very people that were giving her money throughout her political career and the folks for whom she choose to assist by taking a sharp carving knife and sticking in the side of Integrity, leaving it bloodied and wounded next to the capital steps while she went down the street to take a six figure job that was one can only assume was promised her if she did the deed for their benefactors.

If you are even a little bit appalled by Ms. Farrah's blatant lack of integrity in the Michigan Direct Shipping debate, you should write her and tell her. I did.

Can I Beg A Dose of Common Sense?

The American legal system really is a mess. Whether it's the reluctance of the two parties in congress to address nominees for various federal courts or the constant tort claims, it seems that justice comes at an obscenely slow pace.

One of the reasons, however, that justice is often very slow in coming is due to the various lawsuits that are filed that truly seem meritless, a nuisance and meant merely to aggrandize the lawyers filing the complaint.

Take for instance this lawsuit recently filed against Beverages & More that claims their "5 Cent Sale" is deceiving. In the Wine Business Monthly article on the lawsuit we have this little revelation about the claim in question:

“This practice of using a fictitious, marked up, or otherwise misleading regular price" is a deceptive, unfair and illegal practice,” alleges the filing. Plaintiff Peter Gray Jr. of San Francisco seeks restitution, damages, injunctive relief, and attorneys' fees, claiming to have been “actually injured as a result of BevMo’s conduct in an amount not less than the difference between what he paid for the two “regular” price bottles of wine (a total of $17.98 plus tax) and what he should have paid if BevMo had sole the bottles at their actual regular prices (a total of $12.98 plus tax).”

If you read this closely, the plaintiff in the case is claiming he was "injured" to tune of at least $5.00.

I'll tell you what, Mr. Gray, give me a call and I'll shoot you a check for four times that amount if you choose to drop your lawsuit and give our legal system a small break. I'll consider it the completion of my civic duty for the day.

Gray claims that with some wines the "regular price" advertised is in fact a higher price than what would be considered "regular" prior to the 5 Cent Sale. BevMo claims the lower-than-regular prices Mr. Gray has seen on some wines actually represents their "Club Bev" prices on some wines.

Who Cares? Really. Who Cares?

There's no question about it. Americans are in desperate need of tort reform as well as a dose of common sense. And some Americans need to do something with the time they have on their hands besides filing seemingly ridiculous lawsuits. Tell you what, Mr. Gray, in addition to giving you a check for 4 times the the least amount you were supposedly injured by BevMo, I'll also throw in a beginners book on wine. Maybe that will occupy your time and save us Californians from footing the bill so you can retrieve your $5.00.

A Collision of Wine, Politics and Commerce—How You Can Help

AND NOW A VERY SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR, URGING WINE LOVERS WHO CARE ABOUT FAIR TRADE, THEIR RIGHTS AND THE FREE MARKET TO GET INVOLVED
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For Immediate Release: November 9, 2009

Politics, Wine and Fair Trade Collide at Online Wine Auction

Online Fundraising Auction Supports Efforts to Give Wine Merchants
Right To Ship Wine, Consumer right to buy the wines they want

(Sacramento, CALIF)—Beginning today and running through November 19th, Specialty Wine Retailers Association (SWRA) and WineCommune.com are sponsoring the "Wine Without Borders" Online Fundraising Wine Auction. The online auction of wine will raise funds to support the effort to overturn state-sponsored discrimination against  online commerce and give wine lovers real access to the wines they want, but can't find at their local wine outlets.

To view the various lots up for bid in the auction, wine lovers can go to: www.winecommune.com/help/swra.cfm. Wine lovers that support free trade in wine can quickly register, start bidding on wines and know they are helping the effort to bring down protectionist wine shipping laws.

"Between 2000 and 2008, more than $65 million was given to state political campaigns by special interests that oppose the idea of wine lovers buying wine online," said Tom Wark, Executive Director of the Specialty Wine Retailers Association. "We shouldn't be surprised then that today, in the 21st century, 36 states help these same well-healed special interests with protectionist laws that ban the shipment of wine into their states."

Among the wines on the block at the Wine Without Borders Online Fundraising Auction are: a 3 liter bottle of 2000 Chateau La Mission Haut Brion, Martinelli Jackass Vineyard Zinfandel, Bordeaux futures including cases of 2007 Chateau Petrus and Chateau Mouton Rothschild, a collection of 2004 Syrahs from across California, 1996  Veuve Cliquot La Grande Dame Champagne, a 6 liter bottle of 2006 White Cottage Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, and many more hard to find and rare wines. In all there are more than 90 lots up for bid.

Specialty Wine Retailers Association is the only national organization that is working to overturn protectionist anti-wine shipping laws, give wine merchants access to the national wine market and allowing consumers to finally gain access to the wines they want by working to change laws in various states.

The proceeds of the "Wine Without Borders" auction will go toward helping fund the SWRA efforts across the country, including lobbying and media relations efforts.

"The 'Wine Without Borders' Online Wine Auction also gives consumers the opportunity to get involved and help with this effort to open up online wine sales across the country," said Wark. "To some this cause seems trivial, but in addition to supporting corruption and blocking wine lovers from accessing the wines they want, states that ban retailer to consumer shipping are losing millions of dollars in tax revenue that could be earned by simply letting their  citizens buy wines from out of state wine retailers when they can't find them at home."

About Specialty Wine Retailers Association
Specialty Wine Retailers Association is a national organization of fine wine retailers, wine clubs, auction houses and consumers that advocate for fair and well-regulated wine shipping laws. For more information about SWRA see http://www.specialtywineretailers.org or on Facebook at the Specialty Wine Retailers Fan Page.

# # #

Contact:
Tom Wark, Specialty Wine Retailers Association

707-935-4424 • twark@specialtywineretailers.org

Media interested in interviewing Tom Wark or wine merchants involved in this effort can contact Tom Wark at the above email address and phone number. A list of Auction lots is also available by contacting Tom Wark.

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WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED WINE BLOG

Fraud & Terroir

With the report out of Oregon late last month that the Geological Society of America poo pooed the notion that the "Minerally" taste in a wine has anything to do with the minerals in the soils that the wine's grapes were grown, we are once again reminded that the notion of "Terroir" may just be the a fraudulent, if not romantic, idea that marketers and PR types like me like to flog in front of the buying public.

But isn't it really one of the most compelling ideas you can imagine: The wine in your glass that comes from a small, ancient vineyard in Tuscany gives you a connection to that piece of soil because the wine TASTES like that soil. You visit this unique place via your taste buds.

But it just ain't true.

The announcement by the GSA got lots of coverage, including in Decanter, The NY Times and the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

But dispelling the idea that a wine's minerality comes from the minerals in the soils isn't such a big deal. Most thinking people know that's a little bit absurd, especially if they've been reading the literature over the past few years. What would be a big deal is if the idea that the difference between appellations could be tasted in the wines. The fact is, there is not specific "Russian River Valley Pinot Noir " taste. There is no specific "Alexander Valley Chardonnay" taste. This is a myth.

Whether it's an appellation association or a winery telling consumers they can taste the region in their wines, both border on fraud. I'd be willing to bet that if you lined up 10 different Pinots from ten different CA appellations, very few people in the world could correctly identify the appellation of even three of the wines.

That said, I am very attracted to the idea of promoting the special characteristics of small, single vineyard plots. Here is where I think consumers can be led down a path that connects soil and climate to taste in a very direct way. It's at this micro level when the interplay of soil composition, aspect of the land, micro climate, vine density, vine age, cover crop, irrigation routine and winemaker interaction can be explored in detail and some very good estimates can be made on how they affect the final wine.

The Wheels Fell Off The Wagon in Saint Helena

The city of Saint Helena in the middle of Napa Valley wants to prohibit tasting rooms in its city limits from tasting and selling any wines that do not carry the "Napa Valley" appellation or a Napa Valley sub-appellation on the label.

What I can't figure out is why the Saint Helena City Council doesn't just go all the way and prohibit the sale or tasting of any wines that don't cary the "Saint Helena" sub appellation on the bottle. With the approval of this new regulation, the Saint Helena City Council seems to want to appear as parochial and silly as they possibly can. Why take half measures? Why not jump the shark completely and appear completely nuts?

And it IS nuts to prohibit the sale and tasting of non-Napa Valley wines in it's city's tasting rooms. Is there really a danger that Saint Helena-based tasting rooms will degrade the Saint Helena or Napa Valley brands if they pour tastes of the wineries' Mendocino Pinot Noirs? Maybe there is.

I'm not a free market purist. How can you be when there is so much at stake where the environment and community planning is a critical part of the quality of life of any region. But actually dictating the appellation of wines that can and cannot be poured? When this sort of thing takes up city council time hasn't the moment come when the issue of disbanding the council for lack of legitimate things to do needs to be debated? Clearly the wheels have fallen off the wagon at Saint Helena's City Hall.

Hat tip to Marcia @ Cornucopia Creations for alerting me to the story.

Why Are America's Wine Wholesalers Giggling?

“We have a system set up in this country for distribution (of wine) that is designed to create accountability and responsibility. Amazon to their credit tried to abide by the laws that created accountability. When they found out they were unable to do so in a cost effective way, then they had to at some point bail out. The larger issue is if Amazon and its resources couldn’t do it legally, obviously these other companies aren’t doing it legally and taking advantage of the lack of state enforcement.”
Craig Wolf, CEO, Wine & Spirits Wholesalers Association

Mr. Wolf should be extraordinarily proud of the success that he, as CEO of the largest wine wholesaler organization in America, and individual wholesalers have achieved in their attempt to limit as much as they can consumer access to wines. Their latest victory is Amazon.com's retreat from selling wine on-line. The inane, archaic, and wholesaler-supported regulations that define the three-tier system are what Amazon.com was up against. America's wine wholesalers support these anti-consumer, anti-competitive regulations precisely to be able to blunt and stop entry into the wine business by companies like Amazon who might be able to demonstrate the nonsensical nature of much of the three-tier system, not to mention the redundancy inherent in having state's mandate the use of wholesalers to get wine to market.

However, that said I think it's important to look closely at the statement above, made by Mr. Wolf in an interview with Wine & Spirits Daily.

“We have a system set up in this country for distribution (of wine) that is designed to create accountability and responsibility."
Even if this were true, what are the odds that a system designed in the 1930s, when there were hardly any wines being produced in the United States, when Americans rarely drank wine and when it was impossible to ship wine across the country without ruining it, would have any relevance to today's wine market? That's a rhetorical question. What was once a system set up to give states accountability and promote responsibility has turned into a welfare and bailout system for America's wine wholesalers. "Designed to create accountability and responsibility" is really just a euphemism for "a system that guarantees wine wholesalers control of the market at the expense of wineries, retailers and consumers".

"Amazon to their credit tried to abide by the laws that created accountability. When they found out they were unable to do so in a cost effective way, then they had to at some point bail out."
Wholesalers has spent millions and millions of dollars that only they in the middle tier of the three tier system could afford to spend, to influence legislatures to pass and keep in place laws that make it as difficult as possible for companies like Amazon to safely bring wine to the consumer; wines that the wholesalers have no interest in bringing to the consumer. What Mr. Wolf does not say is that there are any number of ways the regulations concerning the distribution of wine could be changed that not only allowed for accountability, but also provided consumers with real choices, created a fair playing field for all parts of the three tier system, promoted competition, and forced wine wholesalers across the country to actually work for the money they make rather than having it handed to them on a government issued plate.

"The larger issue is if Amazon and its resources couldn’t do it legally, obviously these other companies aren’t doing it legally and taking advantage of the lack of state enforcement.”
Mr. Wolf is making statements here about which he knows nothing. He doesn't name the names of those that he says are shipping illegally for a very good reason: he's a lawyer and knows better than to make that kind of reckless accusation. But more importantly, he gets the whole issue wrong. The larger issue is not about illegal shipping. The larger issue is why wholesalers spend millions of dollars to preserve a system that in states across the country produces terrible selections of wine relative to what's really available in the U.S. Market? Why do wine wholesalers ALWAYS oppose proposals that allow consumers to access the vibrant selection of wines in the U.S marketplace, forcing them to choose from the rudimentary selection that wholesalers want consumers to stick with?

The bottom line? Right now, across the country, wine wholesalers are jumping with joy, laughing and giggling uncontrollably because they were able to successfully thwart a program that would have given consumers better access to wine.

Yes, I know its just more bitching and moaning. Fine. If you want to do something about this there are some options.

1. Find out who your STATE legislators are and write them telling them you want to be able to have wine shipped to you from both wineries and retailers.

2. Educate yourself about retailer-to-consumer shipping laws and politics.

3. Educate yourself about winery-to-consumer shipping laws and politics.

4. Become a Facebook Fan of Specialty Wine Retailers Association

5. Write Craig Wolf and express yourself regarding wholesalers' agenda.