Wine Distribution Law Goes Into Effect Sunday

By Chuck Sudo in Food on May 29, 2008 7:03PM

If you're a member of an out-of-state wine club or shop online from an out-of-state wine retailer, you have a few days left to place an order. So make it count.

HB 429 and SB 123, signed into law last fall by Governor Sound Byte, goes into effect Sunday (for previous Chicagoist coverage on HB 429, here is a link to the respective posts). The legislation allows for customers to buy wine directly from a winery — up to 12 cases annually — provided that winery has purchased a direct shipping license from the state. It also allows for equal amounts of wine to be purchased by a customer from both in-state and out-of-state wineries directly.

But the legislation shuts out direct shipping for larger wineries, who must go through a distributor in order to sell their product. Out-of-state wine clubs and retailers are also prevented from doing business in Illinois as distributors — who have been the driving force behind the new law — have used the long-refuted notion of underage drinkers getting their hands on wine via internet or telephone sales.

The Tribune ran a great editorial on this Tuesday, penned by Tom Wark of the Specialty Wine Retailers Association and the Fermentation wine blog. Wark notes in his editorial that distributors have shelled out $6.3 million in campaign contributions to state politicos since 2000. Liquor distributors have given Governor Blagojevich's campaign fund a cool half-million since he took office. When you see those numbers, it comes as no surprise that this is one of the few things on which lawmakers in Springfield seem to have agreed. And that is only because they were enticed by the distributors' gravy train.