Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Wineries

From todays Denver Post.

Colorado's wineries had reason to toast the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday after justices struck down laws barring interstate wine shipments in two states.

The ruling could lead to an increase in the amount of vino flowing across state lines from winemakers in Colorado and other states, said Bill Nelson, vice president of WineAmerica, a national trade association for wineries.

"Now they can build mailing lists and a list of loyal customers," he said. "This is an incentive to have additional wineries."

Amen to that. I think Colorado wineries are starting to put out progressively better wines, but they have only been available to a small part of the country, until now.

"Yahoo," said Jackie Thompson, owner of Boulder Creek Winery. "Just last week in our tasting room we had two different parties from states you can't ship to. They wracked their brains to find friends in another state that we can ship wine to, so they can drive there from home and pick them up."

Small wineries - those that produce on average about 4,000 cases a year - have quadrupled since 1980 and account for about three-quarters of the nation's estimated 3,726 wineries, according to the U.S. Treasury.

The smaller wineries say they can't compete with huge companies unless they can sell directly to customers over the Internet or by allowing visitors to their wineries to ship bottles home.

This should help the small wineries and should make travelling to them an even better vacation option. Why travel and visit these wonderful wineries when you can't have a case sent home? My guess is that liquor stores and wholesalers will be minutely affected by this. It should just expand peoples options for the wines they are drinking. This is good for everybody.