Big Tobacco. Big Oil. Big Wine???

Anyone who has tried to buy wine over the internet may be well aware of the obstacle course of wine shipping laws tripping up oenophiles all over the U.S. today.

Unless you are fortunate enough to live in what is referred to as a “reciprocal” state, it may quite literally take an act of congress for you to buy a bottle of that great boutique wine you tried during your wine country vacation last year. I know full well how frustrating this is, having lived in Massachusetts until recently. The tragic story typically (or in at least one case) goes something like this.

Irish Catholic kid from Worcester County in Massachusetts somehow gets in with the wrong crowd at Brandeis University and falls in love with French Burgundies, Bordeaux, etc. He becomes more interested in wine than class, to the point that he starts making annual trips to some of the great wine country regions in the U.S.

Ed. Note - Mom and Dad, this fictional person was already 21.

Early on, he visits the larger commercial wineries he knows by name because of their availability in New England retail shops: Mondavi, Beringer, BV, Merryvale, etc.