In recent news, there is a legal battle (as usual) with big distributors and others, fighting to eliminate direct sales in Florida. The newest proposal is saying that direct sales will be limited only to those wineries who produce less than 250,000 gallons of wine per year. Now how exactly does that figure work for a State that records about 25,000 gallons of wines shipped direct (all direct statistics) for all of last year, though this doesn’t include those shipped by in-state wineries. The reports also show that wholesalers/distributors handled about 25,000 gallons of domestic and about 5,000 gallons of imported wine per month. So direct sales have taken less than 10% of the business…so far. Distributors are losing all of that profit, and where is it going…back into the pockets of the wineries who worked so hard to produce the fabulous wines being purchased?
So how is this new law hurting the majority of the wineries that are shipping into Florida. After all, if you are a winery producing over 250,000 gallons a year (100,000 cases), odds are you have a distributor who is taking care of you, and its probably more convenient for the consumer to go buy it at a grocery store anyway. Does somebody really want to wait on a bottle of Kendall Jackson? The concept of direct sales is mostly beneficial to those smaller production wineries that aren’t a staple brand for the distributor.
Regardless of who may benefit more, the fact remains that Florida, one of the nations leading wine consumers, is about to take a step backwards, and if you live in Florida, you should be concerned. Go to FreetheGrapes.org and personalize a letter to protest the legislation. It takes just a second, and if you don’t do it, don’t complain when your missing out on all the fun of these wines that can only be found direct.
