I see in the Wall Street Journal today that both UPS and FedEx are relaxing restrictions on shipping wine purchased by the consumer at a winery. The list of allowable destination states for UPS went from 11 to 31 with hopes of adding another 7 soon. FedEx will 39 states. The article mentioned this was in response to a November 2002 law that made it legal to ship wine into a state purchased by the consumer if it would have been legal for the consumer to carry the wine into the state.
John
I thought the way the law read was that you could purchase wine at a winery if you physically were there and have them ship it to your home state. You can not call up a winery and have them ship it accept to the
11 or so legal states.
Miles, that's right - I know UPS is going to require a customer signature to prove they were in the tasting room or wine shop; I assume FedEx will do something similar. The law allows somebody from another state who visits a winery in another to have the wine shipped home if they could legally take it home themselves. Unfortunately, the law does *not* make legal telephone or internet orders to all of those states; the customer's presence is required. It's a step in the right direction, though ;^)
- Mark W.
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