I just got an email from Gramercy on their spring release, and I saw this at the bottom of the email:
Speaking of parties and clowns. When is the next pick up party? Well…Washington wineries have been informed by the powers that be that pick up parties are no longer permitted. It seems that you cannot be trusted to pick up your wine without opening it before you get home or giving your wine to an 18 yr old smoking herb downtown in full public view. We are currently discussing a plan and will announce our strategy shortly. The party will go on.
Anybody know anything about this? Is this some sort of new law, or reinterpretation of an existing law? I hadn’t heard anything about it until this email. Not the biggest deal, I suppose, but pick-up parties are always fun!
To clarify, if you want to do a pick up party at your winery or tasting room, that is absolutely fine.
However, many wineries that don’t have a presence (winery or tasting room) on the westside of the state may have been renting event spaces where there was a liquor/catering license and doing the pick up party at the event space. Wineries may do this because the price of shipping all the wine FedEx is about the exact same cost as throwing a party. So why not throw a party? However, we (the industry) have been told we can’t do this. It seems there is a worry about what happens to the wine after it leaves the party. It also seems the law doesn’t allow it. This was surprising to many.
We are going to shift our pick up party to our winery in Walla Walla.
Interesting, I thought that you could apply for a temporary event-specific license to be able to pour wine not at your normal winery/tasting room space. That’ll put a cramp in my style if I ever want to try and pour wine in Walla Walla during a release weekend.
Greg, yes, thanks for the details. There really is no end to the madness with rules and regulations state to state. I thought I’d stop being surprised at the latest thing but nope.
By the way, I really enjoyed the latest releases poured Monday afternoon at the Walla Walla tasting in Portland. Nice work.
Can you provide a state or local (Seattle?) reference or law that someone is attempting to enforce. Private wine events happen quite often, in many parts of the state, so I’m curious where this is coming from. Taste Washington would be the largest wine event in the state and although I know wine is not directly sold or distributed there, it seems absolutely STUPID not to allow wineries to bring a truckload for member order fullfillment in conjunction with this, or even a private organized event.
Thanks for the reply.
This is rather disappointing as I am unable to make it to Walla Walla on a Friday night for the release party. But… maybe I will be able to find some left-over bottles on Saturday morning?
Hmm. Now I am not sure. I need to check my credit card records for the year I picked up recently. I know for a fact shipping charges include all sales tax for the sale too.
If so, this gives me easy justify for the drive every year-
If you pick up the wines in Oregon, there is no tax charged as it is you buying the wines in Oregon where there is no sales tax.
If you have the wines shipped, Cayuse has always then charged tax. Most likely because they are bonded in Washington? Not sure and it seems a bit confusing but I’ve always picked up, thus, no tax.
[quote= Interesting, I thought that you could apply for a temporary event-specific license to be able to pour wine not at your normal winery/tasting room space. That’ll put a cramp in my style if I ever want to try and pour wine in Walla Walla during a release weekend.[/quote]
You can still have events in which you pour your wine. What you can’t do is bring wine that people have bought or “sell” or “take orders” at the event. There are people working to change these regulations.
