The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states that allow their own in-state wineries to ship wine to consumers may not bar out-of-state wineries from also selling directly to those same consumers. This is of particular significance to direct-to-consumer wineries who are too small to use wholesalers to get wider distribution. Advertising and marketing analysts expect to see a boom in wine advertising in the coming months.

Roughly 23 states maintain laws on their books that bar out-of-state shipments of alcohol to consumers in-state unless the shipper either has a “brick-and-mortar” presence in the state (California & New York), or uses a wholesaler licensed to distribute in the state (Michigan). The Court points out that states that do not allow alcohol shipment from any company — in-state or otherwise — to their constituency, do not have to accept out-of-state shipments.

Consumer advocates say that the Supreme Court ruling is a victory for the consumer who may see prices reduced and selection increased. We’ll drink to that!

This entry was posted by Tsan Abrahamson on Tuesday, July 5th, 2005 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.