Prohibition!

Just read an article in the Seattle Times about the "Interstate Wine Bottleneck." It's been about six months since the Supreme Court decided that states could not discriminate between in-state wineries and out-of-state wineries. Most of us naively interpreted this to mean that finally in the United States of America, home of free enterprise, consumers would be able to order a case of wine from whatever winery they chose and wineries would be able to ship to consumers in any state. Apparently, it ain't so.

How I wished I could have ordered a case from Pindar on Long Island, New York or Stratus on the Niagara escarpment in Ontario. When I visited tasting rooms in Walla Walla's or the Napa Valley, for example, it pains me to see the disappointment on the faces of folks from states such as Pennsylvania or Massechusetts. Wine lovers need to do something about this.


Jeremy Benson, executive director of Free the Grapes, says that the current patchwork of arcane rules, are "the complete opposite of direct-from-grower, farmer's-market-like that consumers - especially, fine wine consumers- want"( www.freethegrapes.org ). E-mail the Washington State Liquor Control Board in Olympia at: wslcb@wa.gov. Tell them to expedite rule making to allow Washington wineries to ship directly to consumers in New York, so that we can have reciprocity and get some of that Pindar! Better yet, write to your Congressperson advocating WAFTA! (Wines of America Free Trade Agreement), so we can quaff whatever wine we want.