+1. Did this in 2011 while traveling through Central Coast. Most wineries weren’t legal to ship to MD yet. So purchased a locker at a place were shipping was their primary business and they shipped everything regardless of source.
No doubt, but is it being legally and will it continue being done?
I wondered about that. I suspect they may be particularly risk-averse. I remember in the late 1990s when Dennis Vacco was AG in NYS and cracked down on shipments, K&L wouldn’t sell me a Leverpull. I had to talk to someone senior to make the point that there was nothing illegal about shipping a corkscrew across state lines.
I was curious so I checked on BevMo (148 stores in CA, OR, and WA). They ship only to the states they’re in. That says something about the complexity, difficulty, and risks in this.
Or that BevMo isn’t really catering to the high-end crowd that orders from across the country.
At Seattle Wine Storage, we do not do any sort of outbound shipping or wine forwarding via the common carriers. We receive packages sent via UPS or FedX and store for our clients. Both UPS and FedX have rules that require that at least one party, either the sender or receiver, be an authorized wine shipper. This is typically defined as someone having a alcohol license of some sort (winery, retailer, auction house). They do not permit an individual to ship wine to themselves, even if is their own wine. Again, this is an internal rule, not a state or federal law. The rule is probably there to avoid responsibility for violating any of the assinine maze of state laws and put the onus on the authorized shipper. It may be possible for a third party to obtain this authorization from UPS or FedX, but I doubt it. We are not an authorized shipper, nor do I have any interest in performing this function.
Third party fulfillment companies offer wineries several services. Obviously, many small wineries simply want to outsource the shipping and packing functions, and to navigate the assinine state laws. But some of these companies may have started up in order to provide wineries with protection from a wave of ‘felony’ laws that were popular a dcade or more ago.
IIRC, Florida and Georgia were at the forefront of this. States that had misdemeanor laws prohibiting a winery from shipping into their state realized that they had limited ability to enforce these misdemeanor laws, since they had no real jurisdiction on a company in another state, and misdemeanor offenses do not allow extradition or permit them to compel an out of state company to appear. So they came up with the idea of a felony classification, and if a winery was convicted of a felony, they would lose their federal alcohol license, putting them out of business. This quite effectively shut down wineries shipping to those states, and other states began to follow suit. Third party companies didn’t have (or need) a federal alcohol license, so the threat of a felony carried less weight.
To my knowledge, no retailer or auction house uses third party shipping services, but some may. Since neither are wine producers, they have never been able to use the outdated ‘reciprocal’ state laws or the modern ‘permit’ laws most states have, so were generally not able to legally ship to another state. Many did anyway, and UPS and FedX seemed to look the other way and pick up their packages just like they would for in-state shipments by the retailer, or the packages wineries would legally ship to other states.
Many years ago, I realized that rather than have various state AG’s send cease and desist letters to individual retailers, it would be far more effective to simply threaten UPS and FedX with violating state laws, and then they would shut down pickups from retailers. Sadly, that is what appears to be happening now.
Most of us here are quite low brow.
My point is not price related at all. Any company with that many locations, and that much retail inventory, would not (in today’s world) pass up that potential business if it were simple to do. Total Wine ships to 20 states.
What if Total Wine does not carries the collectible wines which many of us want, besides the Caymus 40th Anniversary 29-proof, oak-splintered, vanilla-scented grape jam?
Victor, if I understood the relevance of your reply I would try to respond.
Are there any legitimate organizations that are lobbying on behalf of consumers at the state or federal level? It appears that there is a group of lawyers in Michigan and Missouri that are fighting this nonsense, and while I applaud their efforts, I am primarily concerned about commerce between Ohio and New York, Jersey, Florida and California. Although my contribution would be relatively small, I would happily contribute funds to an organization that could effectively lobby against the status quo in my state.
Has anybody actually contacted them to see if they will ship purchases (auction and retail into NY)? Via UPS/Fedex? Or a third party shipping company?
I seem to be repeating myself here. Yes, I have called them and others have too. And No, they will not ship to NYS AT ALL. Period. Is this clear?
Well, Rare Wine Co just shipped me a ton of wine by UPS, so it isn’t “UPS stops shipping from retailers everywhere.”
You might want to contact Daniel Posner at daniel@grapesthewineco.com
Based on what I’ve read on the Vinous board, he seems to have a good grasp of what’s going on.
I just got a UPS shipment from OR to WA.
I think there is some premature panicking on this thread.
Michael
Bingo. FedEx says comply or no shipping with them, period. With all due respect, Michael, if a few more state AGs send letters to FedEx as I expect the New York AG did, there will be very little wine going from retailers to consumers across state lines. I view this as a serious and potentially far-reaching development, as it has the potential to significantly affect many in the wine business.
I’ll add one more – Hourglass just sent me two tracking numbers 3 hours ago for my summer orders, which have been shipped via UPS.
I called them . They say no new orders will be allowed to be placed for shipment to NY. A friend of mine who lives in NY has a number of wines where he won the auction but has not had the wine shipped to him. They told me to have my friend call the auction desk and they will work with him to figure something out.
Is this clear? Or am I being obtuse?
Once again, winery OK, retail not OK.