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? (more…)