AmericanWinery.com

New Jersey State House

We’ve had many great people and groups reach out to us in the months following Claire Cain Miller’s article about us in the New York Times.  One such group was Capital Public Affairs, operating out of Princeton, New Jersey.  I was informed that these guys had laid significant groundwork in getting a New Jersey Direct Wine Shipping Bill put together and they just needed more support from organizations such as AmericanWinery.com and the fantastic wineries associated with us to push this effort through.

After a couple phone calls, I was convinced that this group had the key components (momentum, support from local representatives, and a grassroots focus) needed to get the wine shipping bills known as State Senate Bill S1810 and Assembly Bill A2656 passed.  We joined their efforts to help back this campaign shortly thereafter.

Since combining our efforts there has been significant progress, namely, the launch of UnCorkNJ.com, a website dedicated to allowing consumers of New Jersey to speak up and voice their support for this movement.  As of recently, the bill also has the necessary sponsors, including State Senator Stephen Sweeney and Assemblyman John Burzichelli.  Incidentally, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine is said to be an American wine lover himself – that kind of support can only help!

Beyond the widespread and significant benefits to New Jersey wine lovers (whose choices at the local wine shop may be extremely limited), wineries that understand the value of direct shipping have a lot to gain if we can get this bill passed.  If you want to gain access to the rapidly expanding wine market in New Jersey and conduct direct sales with its residents, please join our efforts and e-mail the below statement to these influential individuals.

Please check out the proposed bill for more information.

To help open New Jersey to direct shipping, visit the ‘Contact’ section of Governor Jon Corzine’s website and forward the following e-mail.

Subject: I Support The Direct Wine Shipping Bill Proposed for New Jersey S1810/A2656

Dear Governor Corzine,

I am writing you as a concerned member of the American wine trade.  My winery produces fantastic wine that residents of New Jersey may rarely see because they are currently unable to buy directly from my winery. The direct wine sale laws that exist in 35 states have proven that this method of selling wine is not only safe, it strengthens consumer choice and is financially beneficial to both my winery and to the State of New Jersey for the revenues that may be obtained through tax payments. Please consider the importance of bill numbers S1810 and A2656, for the many wine lovers in your state, for my winery, and for the benefits this type of legislation will provide the great Garden State of New Jersey.

Cheers,

*Your name*
*winery name you are affiliated with*

To help open New Jersey to direct shipping, visit the ‘Contact’ section of Governor Jon Corzine’s website and forward the above e-mail. Click here!

Additional Options: You can also contact Governor Corzine by writing to the Office of the Governor, P.O. Box 001, Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0001, or by calling (609) 777-2500.

This week I was contacted by an individual in the Ground Shipping Department at USPS regarding a Bill that recently passed the Department of Justice and is awaiting sponsorship by a state representative.  This Bill would allow the USPS, a quasi-governmental corporation similar to Amtrak and the Federal Reserve, to ship wine like any of the other 250 million packages they ship each year.

In theory, a winery could take some wine to the post office or arrange for pickup and the receiving customer could have the wine delivered to their door to sign and present ID. This even means that someone could have wine shipped to their……wait for it…..P.O. BOX.  For someone like myself that would be awesome.  Although I may regularly accept packages at work, I would much prefer to roll into the Post Office and pick up my weekly stash of wine at my convenience.

Another proposed advantage is that if the recipient was not home or there was not an adult to sign for it, the customer could just go to the local post office to pick it up later that day or week.  No more send-backs, and unlike the FedEx or UPS Distribution centers, most people know exactly where their local Post Office is.

Having the USPS enter the wine shipping biz would create more competition and perhaps greater conveniences.  This is especially true as DHL has recently decided to ban wine shipments altogether starting November 3.

Are there any reasons why USPS should not enter the wine shipping business? Could this potentially be bad for wineries or their customers?

Update (11/3/08): Louis DeRienzo just e-mailed me to say that he had received over 150 responses from an e-mail we sent out asking wineries to add their support for the bill, much more than he had anticipated!

If you haven’t already done so, please e-mail Louis at louis.p.derienzo [@] usps.gov with the following message.

Dear Post Master General John E. Potter,

Our winery supports the United States Postal Service’s proposal to begin shipping wine. USPS could provide value and convenience to my winery in the growing direct-to-consumer wine shipping channel.  Please continue to move this Bill forward.  Thank you.

Keep up the e-mails everybody!

Yesterday I drove from Seattle to Mission, British Columbia, a town north of Sumas, WA – only about fifteen minutes from the U.S. border. Meeting up with my Canadian father who “immigrated” to Canada about ten years ago, it has been a few years since I have been up there and I thought it prudent to find out what our neighbors to the north are up to in the wine trade.

Dinner was prepared…a penne pasta with vodka sauce was the main course, and my uncle presented a few “Canadian” wines. During the casual chatter, hysterical laughter and other ramblings, I found myself compelled to investigate the wine a little further.

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Gary Vaynerchuk.

I admit, I never would have recognized this name two years ago. But in two very short years (perhaps less) this name and the wine-infused, palate-drenching, non-traditional approach to wine his name symbolizes has had an infectious effect on wine consumers world wide.  I had the pleasure of meeting Gary just before the wild fire was set and ever since the first Wine 2.0 event my appreciation and respect for Gary has grown tremendously.

Gary would be the first to admit that he’s not a Rhodes scholar and didn’t study English at Oxford, and as you might guess, neither have I.  He chose video as his medium because he is raw, unrefined, reactionary, and as in your face “Jersey” as it gets.

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Stacy at WITS 2008

I had the pleasure to fly down to Napa on Thursday July 10th for the Ship Compliant User’s Conference and stay through Wednesday July 16 for the fourth annual Wine Industry Technology Symposium and both events were off the hook. Jason and Jeff from Ship Compliant invited me down to attend the Direct to Consumer Shipping seminars and talks were given by the top dogs when it comes to shipping direct. ShipCompliant pulled together an all star crew including the “Godfather” of Direct Shipping Steve Gross from the Wine Institute, the legal powerhouse for wineries Tracy Genesen from Kirkland & Ellis LLP, the Free the Grapes mastermind Jeremy Benson, and the Kiwi with the cuffs Matthew Botting from the California ABC.

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