The other day a visiting friend asked me if there was anything I liked about Florida. I managed to come up with three: no state income tax, warm ocean water (good for diving, unlike California), and thunderstorms. One of the other complaints that I've had about the state is that when we moved here from LA, we could no longer receive wines from the Wine of the Month club, something that we'd been doing for years there.

The Supreme Court has apparently ruled that state laws prohibiting the sale of wine to individuals by out-of-state entities (e.g., the Florida one that prevents the WotM Club from sending us wine in Boca Raton) are unconstitutional. However, Professor Bainbridge says that:

...it's not at all certain that consumers in the 24 states that had banned direct to consumer sales will soon be able to buy wine on the internet and have it shipped to their home or office. If the states chose to change their laws so as to ban direct-to-consumer sales by both out-of-state and in-state wineries, those laws almost certainly would be upheld as within the states' powers under the 21st Amendment. Given the considerable power wielded in most of those 24 by the wholesalers and retailers who benefit from bans on direct-to-consumer shipments, as well as lingering Prohibitionist sentiment in some of the more Southern and rural of them, I expect many of the 24 to enact nondiscriminatory bans on direct-to-consumer shipments.

Well, if that's the case, the state (and its wineries) are in a quandary. There are in fact Florida wineries (something I hadn't known prior to researching this blog post). At least one of them (I didn't check any others--it constituted an existence proof) is shipping wine directly to Florida consumers (in fact it probably even does so out of state, though I didn't attempt the order to find out).

That means that, if the good professor is correct, in order to circumvent this ruling, Florida will have to outlaw in-state wineries from shipping direct as well, and only allow them to offer their fermented grape juice through the groceries as other wine is sold or (perhaps) they might even have to restrict wine sales to the state liquor stores (this is less clear). So it's a devil's bargain for the states (certainly small, relative to, say, California) for them. They can keep out the competition, but only at the cost of losing a perhaps-significant part of their own mail-order market. It will be interesting to see how both the state (and lobbyists in the state wine industry, whatever its political strength) responds.

It looks as though this won't apply to Georgia since our wineries can't ship in-state either. The distributors/wholesalers have a lock on our state legislature that's so strong it can withstand a wholesale party flip inside a single decade and still remain intact.

Hrmmm, a devil's bargain isn't so bad if you happen to be on the devilish side. I can see influential Florida politicians graciously accepting contributions from hard working Florida winemakers to further the struggle to preserve Florida's moral heritage.

North Carolina, where I am, has a burgeoning wine industry that actually produces some potable wines. Because the vineyards are concentrated in the region hit hard by mill closures and Chinese furniture imports, I'd expect the legislature to amend our law to encourage others to do the same, thereby enabling increased sales of fine Tarheel vintages. Sauvignon blanc and barbeque, anyone?

Off the top of my head: The Gulf coast has gorgeous sunsets over the water. Climbing a tangerine tree to get the good ones, and eating them in the tree. There lizards everywhere, and sometimes you get to see a gator. Giant sea oats. You never freeze your ass off. You have a positive legal right to defend your home. The springs and spring fed rivers of central Florida. And the thunderstorms Rand mentioned. I miss them.

I am in Sacramento, and lucky to be so close to the wine country...very convenient for a Win-a-holic. Let me know if you ever want some sublime Chardoney sent your way!

I don't believe that Florida has any state liquor stores. Though with all the taxes and such any store that sells booze in this state might as well be a government entity...

By the way, a friend gave me a desert wine from the Lakeridge winery, and it was really good, if you're into desert wines -- very nutty and sweet. It went well with cheese, fruit, nuts -- that sort of thing. If I ever get a car again I plan to take a drive out there and sample the wares. They give tours! And don't feel bad -- even though I've lived in Florida all my life, and I'd been given muscadine grapes to eat as a child on a trip to a farm with a vinyard, I had no idea we had actual wineries until a few years ago.

I didn't mean literally state liquor stores a la (e.g., Pennsylvania). I meant the stores that the state has licensed to sell liquor, such as Crown or ABC. In California, one can purchase hard liquor in the grocery.

I seem to recall when I lived in California that general retail establishments occasionally advertised that their liquor licenses were up for renewal. I imagine that the process is somewhat more streamlined there than in other states I've lived in, where the city council or county commission has to hold a public hearing and vote on each application directly, or approve the state authority's issuance by a similar process.

In Alaska, retail sales of alcoholic beverages may be engaged in by a chain supermarket, but the section has to be separate from the other inventory and go through separate checkout -- the result is either an actually separate store, or what amounts to one as in, for example, the Fred Meyer megastore on Airport Way in Fairbanks.

Here in Coweta County, Georgia, there are only two actual liquor stores that I'm aware of, both in one of the outlying smaller towns -- and the second one had a devil of a time getting approved by the local city council because the mayor's brother owned the first.

Does this also apply to foreign wines?

It does seem to be a barking mad piece of legislation.