No one should be surprised that the U.S. Supreme Court denied Sarastoa Wine Market’s attempt to ship wine into Missouri . The state’s statutes ban direct-shipping of bev/al from out-of-state retailers and the court had previously held that the 21st Amendment giving states control over the sale of alcohol within their borders was “unquestionably valid.”
The matter was so clear to the justices that they didn’t even bother to explain why they were rejecting Sarasota Wine Market’s petition. But they had asked the Missouri attorney general to respond to Sarasota Wine Market’s appeal, and he responded that the ban on out-of-state retailer shipments was imposed “as part of Missouri’s tiered distribution system for regulating alcohol shipment and sale within the state– a system this court has recognized as ‘unquestionably legitimate.”
There is a difference, conceptually, between out-of-state retailers shipping into a state and out-of-state producers shipping into a state. At least theoretically, if a customer wants to buy wine produced by a particular winery, the retailer can obtain it from a wholesaler, by special order if need be. But a small winery cannot force a distributor to carry its products, so the only way it may be able to obtain distribution in a state is to ship direct. Even there, the winery will have to comply with each state’s registration and taxation rules.
It’s possible some other case might find the key to getting the U.S. Supreme Court to consider it, but we wouldn’t count on it.