Texas Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission has notified all 1,600 wineries holding direct-to-consumer shipping licenses in the Lone Star State that it intends to audit them. If the audits are successful in generating significant revenue, expect to see the process repeated by other states, Alex Koral, senior regulatory counsel for ShipCompliant by Sovos told Kane’s Beverage News Daily.
“That should be constantly in back of mind for everybody who’s producing,” he said, adding:
“There has been a lot of talk about shipping by unlicensed parties or exceeding volume limits by certain licensees or not paying and this is what states are really looking for and they are seeing the DTC wine shipping market as a region that is ripe for this kind of review.”
Texas is also checking to make sure wineries aren’t shipping more to any individual than is allowed each month.
Whether Texas actually audits every licensee remains to be seen. But it is asking licensees to “provide a very long list of information, all this specific order data, who purchased it and where did the order go.”
One of the rules that Texas has in place is that a DtC wine licensee cannot import wine from a foreign winery or purchase it from a neighbor and then resell it to Texas consumers. They have to own the wines they are selling.
”So Texas is looking for information on any contract that you have with other parties and the kind of employee contracts you have – that sort of thing – along with information about your corporate organization, who your owners are, your officers or directors, that sort of information,” Koral says.