Can I open a retail store and sell bottles from my personal cellar ?

just wondering - know of the “tier-system” a little bit - thanks

In most states, NO.

In MA, only if you enjoy paying massive fines.

In California you’ll be putting yourself in one of these if caught:

I’m not sure how you’d do this even if it was legal. Unless you have a MASSIVE cellar, you’ll run out of stock - what do you do then?

You might be able to sell the wine legally to a store (you can in WA but have to jump through some hoops and I’m not at all sure you can do it if it’s your store), you can always use winebid to sell off wine (not sure about the legality, but meh) and if you have a lot of auctionable wine you can always call one of the auction houses.

Illegal in MD too

In NYS, and in CA, you can purchase private cellars, so why couldn’t you buy your wife’s collection?

I was going to mention that, but I couldn’t find the rule here in CA on cellars. Carrie is pretty sure the wines purchased from cellars must be 15 years old by vintage. But in all honesty, I have heard a few people mention their private cellar supplemented the their start up retail business. It all comes down to how much they check on you. Right now in California, lay-offs and furloughs have reduced the number of visits we get and they (ABC) have had to prioritize their enforcement efforts to complaints, grant programs and mandated activities.

The other thing is what’s in your cellar. Right now it has to be a highly sought after wine or a great deal for walk-in traffic. Website with the frills is needed to reach many of those who shop for specific wines.

Randy

How do wine auction houses function then?

Different licensing. California ABC has a “Wine Broker” license that allows all the auction sites.

I believe it is ok in Oregon.

great info every one - I was in a shop recently and the fellow had an 80s vintage of Diamond Creek - I asked about its provenance and he said it was from his own collection - I guess throwing a bottle in here and there from one’s own stash is like speeding, illegal but only if you get caught

Harrison, where do you live? In the US, it is very much a state by state proposition. In most states it is not trivial to get a license to sell alcohol. In NYS a private citizen can sell wine to a wine store, and I am aware of at least one well-known store that got its start that way, i.e. based on the cellars of the owners. But I would assume it only pays if you plan to stay in business after selling through your own cellar.

Have you ever actually had a visit from the ABC after your initial permit site visit? I never knew of one in 3 years of being in my store almost constantly, but figured there could have been decoys from time to time.

One decoy that I know of, but believe there was one or more clandestine visits. Before I retired from the Police Dept., I met with ABC on several occasions when they were in town. There were three general reasons they were there in order of occurrence:

1. Inspections/surveillance on stores they had received complaints or calls on.
2. “Routine” drop in visits of stores. Most were clandestine visits w/o identifying themselves, usually the 7-11/convenience type stores and liquor stores. Probably a prelude to which stores would be targeted with the decoy. The last time a decoy came into our store, the two officers entered first, one walking directly into the Humidor where he would have a view of the cash register and the other to a section of the store where he could observe the racks with the “cheap” wine. The decoy entered and walked directly to the “cheap” wine rack, grabbed the cheapest bottle and headed to the register. After the decoy was carded, the two officers left. Based upon their actions, it was apparent they knew the layout of the store.
3. Decoy operations.

I thought that the resale rule was 5 years for white wines, 10 years for reds. Of course, that’s the rule. What individual wine stores actually do may be different. Your mileage may vary. Objects in rear view mirror may be larger than they seem. Do not fold, spindle or mutilate. Do not remove tag from mattress.

Bruce

You are correct sir:

23104.6. Permitted to sell wine. (a) Any nonlicensed person owning bottled vintage wine purchased by that person at retail, is authorized to sell that wine to a licensee authorized to sell that wine if each bottle has a permanently affixed label stating that the wine was acquired from a private collection.
(b) “Vintage wine,” as used in this section, means bottled white, rose, or sparkling wine which is not less than five years old or bottled red wine which is not less than 10 years old.

The question is what do they mean by 5 and 10 years old. Is that vintage date or release date?


Of course you are probably safe with anything that was bought from PC, as it is probably that old by the time you receive it.

They sure have. Like doing this:

http://www.sacbee.com/elkgrove/story/2492143.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What a good cause our tax dollars are going for, bust those football pools.

You can always call your state’s Excise Police and/or your state’s ABC. You may or may not get someone to answer your question and whether or not its actually correct may be a crap shoot but as long as you have an afternoon to waste, give it a try!



JD