This blog entry was originally posted on August 7, 2010, five years after the Supreme Court decided a major case impacting the wine industry. The decision Granholm v. Heald remains important to the wine industry and provides great context for the types of legal issues the American wine industry faces on a…
Tag: 21st Amendment
Are You Writing a Note or Conducting Research on Wine Law?
The fall season is easily characterized by what is a sizable, but highly rewarding, project for many students in their second year of law school: the note writing process for law school journals. And while concerns dwindle from, “What topic should I choose?” to “Is my thesis strong enough” to…
Third Party Providers and the Future of Wine Laws in America
This summer I had the absolute pleasure of working with the legal and regulatory compliance department of Lot18, a dynamic and rising flash sale site for premium wines and epicurean products. Lot18 is a budding company stationed in New York City and embraces an enthusiastic—and highly admirable—dedication to customer service…
Revisiting the Volstead Act: The Power Behind the Eighteenth Amendment for Prohibition
The Volstead Act: the legislative measure whose primary intent was to frame the execution of the Eighteenth Amendment, a curt and inexorable constitutional revision whose overtones still reside in contemporary American society even upon its repeal almost one hundred years ago. The legal supremacy of the Eighteenth Amendment, however, often overshadows…
Costco Wholesale Corp v. Hoen and Federal Antitrust Law
The SCOTUS Granholm decision of 2005 is far-reaching with respect to subsequent issues entailing the three-tier distribution system. Many states allowed wineries to self-distribute their wines directly to retailers and bypass the wholesaler intermediary. This was the issue in Costco Wholesale Corp. v. Hoen, a case decided by the United…
Three-Tier Distribution, Direct Shipment, and Wine Politics in the New York Times
On Sunday, The New York Times published an excellent op-ed article tracing the history of the regulation of wine in the states and discussing the major contemporary problem relating to three-tier distribution in America. The article, which is brilliantly written by David White of Terroirist blog, is accessible at Wholesale…
H.R. 5034 is Now H.R. 1161
The bill many wine lovers feared last year, H.R. 5034 or the Comprehensive Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness Act (CARE), is now known as H.R. 1161, the Community Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness Act of 2011. The text of the 2011 Act is identical to the second version of H.R. 5034 introduced to the…
Breaking News: SCOTUS Decides Not to Hear Wine Retailers Case
BREAKING NEWS! Today, the Supreme Court decided not to examine the case brought by a group of wine retailers asking to review the case of Wine Country Gift Baskets v. Steen decided by the Fifth Circuit. The justices announced today that they will not give further consideration to whether the Texas…
Wine Retailers Appeal to SCOTUS for Review of Constitutional Issues
Happy Holidays from On Reserve! This is quite a belated post, but a legal one nonetheless, that we felt to be incredibly exciting and interesting for both the wine and legal industries. About a month ago, a group of wine retailers petitioned to the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari…
The Alcohol Beverage Legal Environment Post-Granholm
This article gives rise by suggestion of Tom Wark of Fermentation. It explores the legal environment, post-Granholm, relative to the constitutionality of the several state liquor regulatory laws and the underlying effect of the Supreme Court’s holding in Granholm. These three cases include Siesta Village Market LLC v. Steen, 595…