A Toast To Direct Shipping; Long May It Be Legal.

photo by walknboston via flickr

Today marks the 5th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Granholm vs. Heald, which paved the way for more direct shipping of wine within this country. Before the ruling, if you lived somewhere like New York or Michigan and wanted wine shipped to your door from an out-of-state winery, you basically couldn’t get it. Not legally, anyway.

In honor of this anniversary, an organization called Free the Grapes is inviting wine lovers to break out a favorite bottle and join them in a toast this evening. I say, go for it, and while your sipping that nice glass of wine, you might want to go over to Tom Wark’s blog, Fermentation, and read up on a new bill before the House of Representatives called H.R. 5034. Nicknamed the anti-consumer bill, H.R. 5034 essentially seeks to invalidate the direct shipping gains delivered by Granholm v. Heald in 2005. Meaning depending on where you live, you may have to revert back to criminal activities in order to have wine shipped to your home or office. If the idea of this makes you want to take action, compose a message to your Representative or Senator. (It’s easier than you think, if you just click that link back there.) Or, maybe your more of a social networking type. If so, you can join the Facebook campaign to Stop H.R. 5034. Easy, right?

While you toast your freedom to enjoy wine tonight, go online and try to save it. It’s the least we can all do.