Whining about Wine: The Archaic Laws Many States Still Have on the Books

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I'm a wine person. Red wine in particular, though don't ask me to narrow it down more than that. My dear sister, who prefers white wine, recently gave me her wine fridge. She likes her white wine nice and chilly and didn't see how the wine fridge did any better job of keeping her vino cold than her regular refrigerator. Red wine on the other hand needs to be a little warmer. Fifty five degrees is the perfect storage temperature and just below room temperature for serving.

So, I got my wine fridge home. I have limited space but, eventually figured out the perfect spot for it, plugged it in and set it to 55 degrees. The fridge fits eight bottles of wine but, sadly I only had one. Now I have one very happy little bottle of wine sitting in the fridge at the perfect storage temperature. However, with seven empty spots my little wine cellar is incomplete.

Shortly after I realized my wine shortage I got an email from Williams Sonoma advertising their wine club. I thought, this is perfect. On a regular basis they'll send me just the right amount of wine and I'll get to try all different kinds. It will be so cool! Then I looked at the price and I realized it really was more than I would like to spend on wine every month. So, I started searching the Internet to see if any other wine clubs were out there.

I found several of them. I looked over what they had to offer and one in particular stood out. It was the Wine of the Month Club. They had all kinds of options including an option to receive only red wines. And the prices were very reasonable. I was in heaven. This was just what I was looking for. I set my options and proceeded to the check-out page. Here I was stopped in my tracks. A note on this page said that they only shipped to the following list of states... my state was not one of them. I was crushed like a grape!

Truly disappointed and very much liking everything I had experienced with this web site until now I decided to write them an email and find out why they wouldn't ship the wine to me and would they be able to do this someday soon.

I received a very well written and informative response from their customer service department. This made me even more disappointed that I could not join their club. They explained that the laws in my state would not permit them to send wine here (I'm probably the last to know) and they gave me a link to the Wine Institute. Here I found all kinds of information about the laws in different states and which states had archaic laws like mine. This led me to another site for an activist group called Free the Grapes. There's $100 annual fee to join or you can just get the newsletter for free. They provide all the latest information on what's going on with the laws as well as templates and information for writing to your state government and tell them what you think.

Is this a serious issue? Are people's lives at stake here? No, I realize this is more about luxury than life or death. However, I do think this is an issue of freedom of choice. I for one like to think that America is a free country and in a free country I should be able to join whatever wine club I want. I hope you agree. Free the Grapes!

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