Is this asking for trouble?

On a retailer’s web site (and promoted via twitter):

“We hand-carry these precious bottles back from our visits to XXXXXXX, ensuring that these are collector-quality wines. You won’t find bottles of XXXXXX better cared for than ours.”


That’s gotta be against all sorts of state and federal law, no?

What’s the geography on this? I’m not aware a California law against a retailer picking up winery-direct orders directly from wineries within the state. I’ve never seen anything in the ‘tied-house’ sections of ABC law that would prevent that. But, then, I suppose there are a lot of things I’m not aware of.

There’s nothing against hand-carrying wines back for personal consumption (up to a limit of course - not sure how much though), but I know for SURE that bringing them in to SELL raises all sorts of legal issues.

Customs, TTB, and a host of other agencies would be very interested about that.

I have to think that a licensed retailer could pick up wine from a licensed winery/wholesaler for re-sale.

The winery in question is in Italy.

Is the store in question in DC? I thought I read somewhere that they could direct import.

You do realize this is probably marketing hyperbole?

Their idea of “hand-carrying” is having a container truck stop at the winery, get the pallets of TTB-approved labelled wines, put them on a boat, get them to Port Newark/Houston/LA/Seattle/Wherever, put them through the Customs inspection, and finally get them on a truck to their warehouse/store.

I somehow doubt someone is putting cases of wine onto a plane and sneaking them into the US for resale. As I mentioned above, all sorts of legal issues would ensue.

When Manfred Krankl was at Campanile he used to bring home stuff (mostly insanely small production dessert wines) in his suitcase and then sell them in the restaurant with stickers that said “Imported by Alitalia”.

I think that was Roberto’s point and it definitely does happen. There are several bars in San Francisco that sell tequila and mezcal that have been brought back from Mexico in someone’s luggage or in the trunk of a car.

In small quantities, sure. But I doubt someone is bringing in pallets of wine for resale without someone at Customs getting suspicious.

yikes

In DC it is surprisingly easy to do this legally http://www.terroirist.com/2011/04/protectionism-crushes-consumer-choice/.