Folks,
Here is the latest on the changes to the rules for shipping wine into Texas to individuals...
Drew Spencer
*****From Les Constable, Brushy Creek Vineyard To Interested Wine Consumers Subject Wine Shipping in Texas
Yesterday Lou Bright, General Council for TABC explained the current wine shipping issues to us at a meeting in Austin. As excited as some are about the prospects of being able to ship wine into Texas there are a few interesting problems that folks need to be aware of. As Lou said please do not shoot the messenger!:-) Clearly there will be a lot of hard work before this issue is settled. The court has not handed down its order but is expected to do so any time before the end of the month. The order will vacate some but not all shipping laws and out of state wineries will be able to begin shipping under the following restrictions. Shipments are to be made to wet areas only The person accepting the shipment must be at least 21. All shipments must be carried by a carrier with the proper permit. The only legal carrier in Texas is FedEx Ground. It is important that it be understood that FedEx Air is not permitted to ship wine. I do not believe that FedEx has refrigerated trucks so it may be best to wait for cooler weather to ship. In general these shippers do not want to ship wine because as you will see below it is going to be a big headache for them. It is not legal to ship to dry areas and there is no system that can tell a shipper or winery if an order is being sent to a wet or dry area. TABC does not have this information. It exists in a very poor form only at the county clerk level. He gave an example to explain how complicated this all is. The city of Austin voted itself completely wet a few years back. What is completely wet is only the boundaries of the city at the time of the election. (some of these elections were held as long ago as 1937) In the mean time the city expands to include new areas that are dry in one way or another. Those areas do not automatically become wet. The clerk in Austin decided once and for all to sort this mess out and it took them 18 month. During that time they found that they had been certifying the issuance of alcohol permits illegally in quite a few cases. It is important for the consumers to understand that being wet or dry is not a black and white issue. There are many degrees of wet or dry. For example in Arlington you can buy a glass of wine in a restaurant but you cannot buy a bottle of wine in any store so Arlington is dry for wine in a bottle and they will not be able to have wine shipped to residences there. We know that some shipments will improperly go to dry areas. TABC will respond to complaints and do sting operations. It is likely that some wineries or shipping organizations will have their permits challenged over this. Lots of headaches for everyone. The real bad news is that while TABC plans to let out of state wineries ship directly to residence in wet areas they do not plan to extend that same privilege to Texas wineries. He said that the existing law requiring Texas wineries to ship wine to wet areas via package store will remain in effect. He invited us to help them interpret the law differently. I told him that the current interpretation by TABC was not the interpretation explained to us by TABC when it was presented as a take it or leave it offer when we got HB 892 passed. I have contacted him to see if we can revisit this issue and to determine what action we need to take. Filing a law suit is apparently an option but as a low budget organization that depends on the efforts of volunteers that does not appear to be a viable solution. Welcome to the brave new world of wine shipments. Les Constable