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[FERMENTATIONS: The Daily Wine Blog] Wine Shipping: What's Down the Road?: I was informed by a person very close to the deliberations on the meaning for the Supreme Court Ruling in Michigan that one interpretation of the decision could be that if no shipping is allowed into the state or within the state by wineries, it would follow that wineries can not sell AT ALL direct to the public. This would be an extreme interpretation, but not out of the realm of possibility. Of course it would be the near total demise of small wineries in states like Michigan.
[ComparativeLawBlog] Granholm v. Heald (USSC 16 May 2005): The Michigan law at issue simply banned all direct sales by out-of-state wineries and so was patently discriminatory. The New York law required out-of-state wineries to establish a physical presence within the State of New York, which would obviously drive up their costs. This reasoning is not new in the US context and seems very similar to the ECJ's decision in Heimdienst (C254/98) of 2000. In Heimdienst, the European Court of Justice rejected an Austrian law that required door-to-door sellers of groceries to have an establishment within the disctrict they were selling in, or in an adjacent district.
[Neo-Libertarian] SCOTUS Rules Against Discrimination In Wine Cases ...: The Court held, in reference to the 21st Amendment, that Section 2 of the 21st only applies if the state is a dry state (no states are dry since the 1960s, though some states have many dry counties). Section 2 says:The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited."The operative phrase is "in violation of the laws thereof." The reason is obvious, and the Court points it out; the pre-Prohibition jurisprudence held that stopping interstate alcohol shipments was unacceptable in light of the Commerce Clause. The 21st Amendment gave the dry states a helping hand (prior found in Congressional acts) that allowed them to ban interstate transportation of liquor if they wanted to stay dry. It was a way to help states that stayed dry, not a "let states do whatever they want" clause.
[Mark Lerner] Major Libertarian Victory: The libertarian Institute for Justice won its legal battle before the Supreme Court today in its fight to allow wineries to ship their products across state lines. Even more exciting is that the 5 to 4 majority said that laws preventing such shipments violate the Constitution's Commerce Clause, which is exactly the interpretation of this clause that the Founders had in mind and one that libertarians have been defending since at least the New Deal. From the New York Times article by David Stout:
[In the Agora] Who ordered the Merlot?: The great irony of this is that oenophiles, who cheered today's decision as a pathway to greater access to out-of-state wine, might come to rue the day they took protectionist states to task, because if the Michigan Liquor Control Commission, with other similarly situated booze-governing bodies, has its way, all wineries will have to use distributors, which eliminate the profit margins and price advantage that direct sales allow. This would harm the tiny, family-run in-state wineries that were meant to be protected by the laws at issue as well as prevent access to the hundreds of out-of-state wineries that won’t be able to afford distribution contracts. If that happens, nobody will win, except for the Commerce Clause, which can bask in the glory of having devoured the 21st Amendment.
[Gratuitous Dumbassitude] Discriminatory and Anticompetitive: And Georgia’s 50-case limit is a dead giveaway that the wholesalers’ lobby owns our state legislature like so many 16-year-old Thai prostitutes. That said, today’s ruling is an important step in the march toward disassembling the Puritanical perception of alcohol at the governmental level. Today’s ruling sends several important messages:
[Agoraphilia] Wining Arguments: The conflict is between wineries, who would like to ship wine directly to consumers, and state governments (like New York and Michigan) that have prohibited direct shipments from out-of-state wineries. The laws in question are discriminatory, since they do not prohibit direct shipments by in-state wineries. The states have offered various justifications for their restrictions on shipments (the need to prevent access by minors, the need to enforce tax laws, etc.), but – and here’s the key point – all of these arguments apply just as forcefully to in-state as out-of-state shipments, so they cannot justify a prohibition on out-of-state shipments alone. Indeed, the discriminatory character of the laws is so patently obvious that, if the product were anything besides alcohol, the wineries would have a slam-dunk case on Commerce Clause grounds.
[Drvino.blogspot.com] Dr. Vino's wine blog: The financial markets have priced in political risk (and economic risk such as Italy's economy struggles and slowing manufacturing throughout the eurozone) and it now takes $1.22 to buy one euro, down from $1.36 just a few months ago. Whether or not these fears are overblown since the European integration project will undoubtedly stagger on as it has for the past 50 years, cheaper euros are good for European exporters--such as wine producers! Hopefully the prices of European wines in the US market will stop their upward rise of the past few years.
[Info.detnews.com] Sandra Silfven on Wine -- Record number of Michigan wineries make ...: Most wineries view ice wine as a significant product to enhance their reputation. "Ice wine brings us international recognition," says Lee Lutes, winemaker at Black Star Farms, who has a track record for success. His 2000 A Capella Ice Wine was rated one of the top scoring U.S. regional wines by James Molesworth in the Wine Spectator last year. It also was judged the best specialty wine at the 2002 Michigan State Fair Wine Competition and was a Jefferson Cup Nominee last year at the annual face-off of top medal-winning wines at The Homestead in Virginia.
[Info.detnews.com] Michigan Wineries Directory -- The Detroit News Online: Sandhill Crane has taken a sensible approach to being one of the new kids on the block in a part of the state that is still figuring out what it can grow. Wisely, the Moffats planted hybrid grapes, meaning varieties that were developed to withstand cold winters but still make attractive wines, rather than take a chance with vinifera, the wine grapes the world knows best: Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, etc. They do, however, purchase vinifera from other Michigan growers.
[Homepage.mac.com] WLW-WineGeek.com: The wine tradeorganizations, representing wineries, are recommending that their membersnotship wines to states such as Michigan or NewYork yet since there are no laws that explicitly permit such shipments. The samewould hold true for Indiana. (Interestingly, I received a letter from St.Supery's wine club saying that they could now ship to Indiana; I will have tofollow up on that matter.) Indiana's legislature is out of session untilJanuary, 2006, so we can expect a long wait before the legislators decidewhether to open Indiana's borders or shut down all shipments to consumers.
[Scotusblog.com] SCOTUSblog: State wine shipment laws nullified: The decision -- the only ruling on the merits Monday -- specifically nullified laws in Michigan and New York. "It is evident that the object and design of the Michigan and New York statutes is to grant in-state wineries a competitive advantage over wineries located beyond the states' borders," since those laws allow in-state wineries to deliver their goods directly toconsumers, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority. "This discrimination substantially limits the direct sale of wine to consumers, an otherwise emerging and significant business."
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