Pouring In Nantucket? (Needs a MA Distributor?)

The fine folks who run the Nantucket wine festival tell we cannot pour at the event unless we have a Massachusetts distribution.

Many events in other states have a method for a “one day” distributor to get around this issue, but apparently not MA.

Does anyone ITB have any ideas for me on this? It’s only a few cases of wine we would bring in.

MA is one of the toughest, Eric. Can’t have your wine in a restaurant or store without using a distributor. So it might follow that you can’t pour without going through them, either. BYOB is virtually disallowed, as well, though there are some exceptions.

For a short time MA allowed small wineries to self-distribute, but the distributors lobbied and got that banned quickly. It’s a very tough state to find a distributor. Good luck finding someone to clear a few cases for you, Eric.

Hi, i was curious if there were any solutions found; one of our investors is getting married in Massachusetts this september and wanted to order our wine for his rehearsal dinner and wedding reception. It would probably be around 8 cases. I’ve reached out to our compliance folks to ask about what licenses we will need (we can sell DTC but apparently that won’t work for the hotels), but assume we will still need to find a distributor. Thanks.

We are trying to pour in Nantucket ,
It ain’t easy I’m about to say fuck it .
If I do find a source ,
You can drink like a horse .
But you must spit out the wine in a bucket.

Distributors are just trying to protect consumers from cheap wines…and to thwart children tempted to buy collectible wines.
Their extra revenues are just an unfortunate but bearable result.

Though a momentous occasion, proceed with extreme caution. MA is a franchise state and they will own your brand in MA until they say so. I wouldn’t do it for a one off event and without plenty of time to research anyone willing to do this.

What Hardy said.

Can you do some sort of handshake/wink-nod deal with the venue to just pour the wine if you ship it in privately?