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Saturday, August 04, 2007

Ind. Law - Severe impact of 2006 wine-shipping law changes on small, family-owned wineries

Dan and Krista Stockman, "wine lovers – not wine experts – and reporters" at The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, write today in their weekly column "Uncorked," that "Shipping laws hurt wineries." This is a very good overview of how we got where we are now in Indiana, and with what result. Some quotes from the long column:

So how has this wonderful “compromise” worked out?

It hasn’t gone well for most wineries.

The state’s largest winery, Oliver Winery in Bloomington, lost 75 percent of its shipping market. That’s a pretty sizable chunk for the employee-owned winery.

“It’s just such a nightmare,” Bill Oliver said of the new regulations. “They make it so inconvenient it just isn’t practical.”

Other wineries have also suffered, with one paying the ultimate price: Terre Vin Winery, in Rockville north of Terre Haute, closed this year, citing the new regulations as being too much for a small staff.

Lawmakers love to talk about supporting family businesses, farms, Indiana products and agritourism, but the shipping debate showed they were much more willing to listen to big-money distributors. The law was called a “compromise,” but it’s hard to see it that way when the wholesalers essentially held a gun to the head of small wineries to win their agreement.

Many winemakers we talked to were disgusted by the whole thing, and especially by the stench of money in the debate: The Institute for Money and Politics’ Web site, www.followthemoney.org, shows contributions by “Beer, Wine & Liquor” special interests in Indiana made more than $300,000 in contributions from 41 different political action groups, businesses and business owners in that industry just in 2006.

Small, family-owned wineries will never be able to match those kinds of contributions – as if that should matter – to get lawmakers’ attention, so they have to do what they can.

“None of us – none of us – can afford to not be there and put a face on it and show who we are,” Winzerwald’s Dan Adams said. “Where the legislature’s concerned, anything’s possible.”

Adams said they constantly get calls from people who have had Winzerwald’s wines at a friend’s house and want to order some, but the winery has to turn them down.

“They say, ‘We had it at Bob and Jane’s, can we get some of it?’ ” Adams said. But if they haven’t been to the winery in person – and have the paperwork to prove it – the answer has to be no.

For many earlier ILB entries on the wine shipping issue, check this list.

Among the entries is this one from April 4, 2007, headed "Liquor wholesalers launch attack on IU Law professor." The ILB wonders what is the status of (to quote Leslie Stedman Weidenbener 's story of April 4th in the LCJ) Indiana University's "internal investigation to determine if one of its law professors improperly used state resources or time for lawsuits aimed at allowing winery shipments across the country." More:

"I think it's totally inappropriate for a state employee to be pursuing things on behalf of an outside client and trying to get paid on the state taxpayers' nickel to do it," said Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne. * * * [who] told IU School of Law Dean Lauren Robel last year he was concerned about Tanford's actions and had questions about whether he was working on state time.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 4, 2007 09:03 AM
Posted to Indiana Law