It appears our government is at it again. While our financial institutions are still on shaky ground, people are losing their homes and jobs, and big business and unions get anything they want, our government at play decides to go after the small wineries – again.
What I am taking about is another midnight hour bill that the House of Representatives thought would not get the attention of the American people — wrong! The Bill was introduced under HR 5034 and goes by the name, Comprehensive Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness (CARE) Act of 2010. CARE? Certainly they do not care about small business or the consumer. The four Representatives that were used to introduce this to the House Committee were: Bill Delahunt (D) of Massachusetts, Mike Quigley (D) of Illinois, Howard Coble (R) of North Carolina, and Jason Chaffetz (R) of Utah.
It was written by the National Beer Distributors Association, say what? Yes, you heard it correctly. However, I think their intent was to limit direct sales by wineries and others to major retailers that would bypass the distributors (brokers/middlemen in the transaction). Their fear could be that major beer producers like Coors and others would build their own distribution systems, some already do. However, the bill also affects small wineries (even small breweries, if they ever want to ship directly to your home and not use distributors). I am not going to say that we need to cut out the middleman. However, this bill is written with major flaws and loopholes that could have severe consequences for the small wineries, most of whom are not even given the time of day by distributors because of their limited production.
What it could ultimately do is limit our right to choose wines that we want. How? It grants states power to control what wineries can ship directly to our homes from other states. Five years ago the Supreme Court ruled that if a state were to allow direct shipments of wines from within the state to its own citizens, then those citizens should have the freedom to choose from among other American wineries also. Now, this ruling is coming under attack. This affects direct shipments from small American wineries mainly, of course. Most of these wineries are family owned or friends that decide to take a risk for a dream. It is estimated that there are thousands of small and boutique wineries in America plus all of the sub-industries that are kept in business because of them and the tens of thousands employed under them.
If you are a member of a wine club or you pull up a winery on the Internet and decide to order your favorite wine from an out of state winery, HR 5034 could prevent you from receiving what you want. Many of these small wineries do not use distributors, instead they sell you their wines directly through wine club memberships or online sales. This will not affect sales at the winery itself, just wines shipped directly to you by out of state wineries, it would also not affect large wineries that use distributors. Small and boutique wineries have limited production, and many produce some of the finest wines out there. Because of the limited production, usually under 5,000 cases a year (most well under that), distributors will not even pay any attention to them, leaving their direct sales to us as one of their main sources of revenue. Come to think of it, shipping companies are not going to be happy about this either.
Speaking about shipping, it was a lame attempt to say that HR5034 would prevent children from obtaining alcohol, which was one of the arguments proponents used as well. All wine shipments must have an adult signature. I can attest to this, one of us must be home to accept the wine shipment or it will not be released by the shipping company. We have ended up having our wine club shipments sent to our office or we just pick up the shipments at wineries close to us (OK, any excuse for further wine tasting will do!). Think about it, while in state shipments would prevent this, but if the shipment came from out of state suddenly it would be available to them? Those under 21 have an easier time getting alcohol locally than picking off an adult’s wine shipment. Parents if concerned about their children getting their wine, get a liquor cabinet or wine closet with a lock and key! This argument fails big time.
What to do? Well, The Tea Party has become The Wine Party — are you ready? If you want to maintain the right to choose your wines, for other adults to do the same, and to try and prevent any further small businesses from going under, I urge you to write your Representatives to not pass HR 5034 (please note that this could be revised and/or be given another number before going to the Senate). If it passes the House then it will be moved to the Senate, so it will not hurt to write your Senators as well.
This issue has gone viral and there are many sites and social networks popping up to help fight this and provide you with the needed information necessary to call and/or write your representatives.
If you are on Facebook, there are three groups formed there:
On Twitter, go to HR5034 or #HR5034 for feeds on this topic, you must be signed in to go directly to these pages. Also, be patient while these pages load as it can say there are “no results” until it completely loads the page.
I could not find any sites that were proponents of HR5034, but I do encourage you to do your own research. I have provided a link to the actual bill above. If you feel the way that I do, then get involved to defeat this now!
Cheers then Enjoy!
Revised 4-29-10 @ 1:56 pm an original draft was published before a correction was made. The original said that there were over 7,000 small and boutique wineries in America. It has been revised to say thousands as there were conflicting numbers that could not be confirmed. There appears to be at least 3,000. However, in many reports it was not clear what they classified as “small”, to some it was only 2,000 cases per year produced, while others it was up to 5,000 cases per year, some included boutique wineries while others did not. All in all there were multiple numbers given surpassing an estimated 7,000 small wineries in America.
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