e-Commerce is ideally suited for offering consumers with access to the offerings of small vineyards offerings, hard-to-find-vintages, or other niche wine products. Yet the sale of beer, wine, and spirits in the United States is thoroughly blanketed by a three-tier distribution system of producer, distributor, and consumer. A relic born out of Prohibition-era concerns, this system reduces consumer access to the offerings of small vineyards offerings, hard-to-find-vintages, or other niche wine products.
Without demonstrating the need for discrimination, some states have enacted regulations that disadvantage out-of-state wine sales. These rules have been held as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause if states do not extend shipment privileges to in-state and out-of-state wineries in the same manner.
