Vintage Story

Epistemological epiphany:
Life must be lived forwards,
but can only be understood backwards
Mercifully, life may be enjoyed sideways!

WINE AND POLITICS

    On this first Lunacy of 2008, the Pontiff bestows on each registrant a free membership in VinSense, Inc., one of only two wine consumer advocacy groups in the United States. VinSense works to modernize Indiana law governing the purchase and distribution of wine in the Hoosier state and is dedicated to making possible the direct shipment of wine from producer to consumer. If you can, please come to our annual meeting at 6:30 pm on February 4 in the Farm Restaurant-Bloomington at 108 East Kirkwood in Bloomington. If you want to stay for some pizza and tapas afterward, please call the Farm at (812) 323-0004 or (877) 440-FARM.

            We Hoosiers are victims of the most egregious monopolistic practices in the United States. We are led to believe that we have free choice in the selections of wines we buy and consume.  Not so. We can choose only what a retailer has selected for sale in his or her business. The retailer, in turn, can stock his or her shelves only with wines a wholesaler has selected to offer.  Chances are, your very own State Senator or State Representative has made sure that this is and remains the case. The Pontiff acknowledges that there are elected representatives who tried to change this practice, but obviously they are the minority; the General Assembly approved this practice.

            There is some peculiar math at work in wine marketing. More than 5,000 wineries exist in America. Thousands more ship into our country wines from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and South America. It’s not hard to see that no single bricks-and-mortar building could house even a few bottles from each and all of these producers. While all these wineries were proliferating, the number of wholesalers diminished from 5,000 in 1950 to fewer than 200 today. (There are only two in the whole state of Texas, for example.) This consolidation among wholesalers has tightened their hold on the market and all but eliminated any vestige of competition among them or of free trade in the industry.

            How does this come to be? Perhaps, just maybe, the contribution of some $50,000,000 to state political campaigns between 2000 and 2006 had something to do with it. We can’t find another industry so generous to state election campaigns.

            Even when courts intervene, as in Indiana last August, wholesalers find ways to influence shipping regulations that…

 …put volume limits on the amount a consumer can receive; put volume limits on the amount a single producer can ship into a state; limit the size of a winery eligible to ship; establish requirements that consumers pay a personal visit to a winery before shipment can be made; ban out-of-state wineries from shipping into a state; prohibit a winery from direct shipping if a wholesaler is also handling that wine, and so it goes. Worse, the wholesalers persuade legislators to prevent a producer from changing wholesalers without paying severe penalties and to require retailers to pay immediately for products they obtain for re-sale (even though a wholesaler may not pay a producer for weeks – even months – in some cases; and prohibit wholesaler use of volume discounts.

            The Pontiff asks: Can any of you really see your own Senator or Representative agreeing to such practices? They will probably tell you that they are trying to prevent underage drinking and to make sure the appropriate taxes are collected. There is a farm term for use in replying to those arguments. A UPS or FEDEX licensed carrier can do a better job of monitoring the delivery of a teenager’s 12-bottle case of wine than can your average supermarket cashier or retail clerk faced with an impatient crowd behind a borrowed ID with an older friend or relative in the mix. And since when did wholesalers start collecting taxes?

            So what source is there for access to those thousands of wines we never see? The Internet, that’s what. Just like your order for sweaters, gadgets, and books, you can find just about any wine you ever heard of on the Internet. And if your elected representative is worried about collecting taxes, refer him or her to the order forms of Land’s End, Amazon, or Victoria’s Secret (Oops, is the latter OK for teens?).

            Take your membership in VinSense seriously; accept the Pontiff’s bestowal with pride. Tell your Senator we don’t have $50,000.000 ($1,571,563 just for Indiana), but we have a lot of votes.  Cheers!

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Check the VinSense website at www.vinsense.org.

For further reading: http://www.specialtywineretailers.org/documents/WholesaleProtection-2008.pdf

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    Vintage Story is an e-newsletter authored by Ole Olson and published by the Story Inn, and is available free of charge to all who appreciate good wine. Vintage Story is published at each full moon. The author and the Story Inn specifically authorize the republication, reprinting and circulation of any issue Vintage Story so long as due credit is given to the author and to the Story Inn (which holds the copyright).

If any newspaper or website desires to make use of any issue of Vintage Story, we do request that you notify us. Thanks, and here's to your health!