REthink Wine Blog

Free the Grapes is an organization I usually whole heartedly support but in their new WINE INDUSTRY CODE FOR DIRECT SHIPPING but rule #4 is one that I can not agree with.  The rule states:

“Licensees must verify the purchaser’s age at the point of online purchase before completing any transaction. Some state laws now require age verification using a state-approved vendor, or by receiving a copy of the purchaser’s drivers license, prior to the completion of the transaction. Additionally, licensees must notify purchasers that the recipient will be asked to show identification upon delivery.” 

Yes some states do require a license or a software (not always 100% accurate in every state due to privacy laws) tool to check ID.  In those states it should be part of our best practices but at the end of the day, the ONLY place license verification should be done is a the time of delivery.  Why try to add more and more ways to complicate an already difficult way of doing business?  We call this SALES PREVENTION.  Imagine asking every customer you do business with by the phone, e-commerce, or club to give you a copy of their license or to run through an age verification system.  Imagine how many customers will be fed up with trying to buy wine this way.  As an industry let’s try to make sure our partners (Fed Ex, UPS) do their job and then we do not have to go through this unnecessary and cumbersome triple check.  I understand the reasons but the execution, the costs, and the amount of sales prevention it creates have not been generated for winery’s benefit but more of for prevention of scrutiny against our industry.  Let’s keep Direct sales simple and profitable, not cumbersome and add even more items that need to be done to make this even more convoluted to get wine to people that want it.  I say, if they are over 21 and the winery pays taxes to the state, why put cumbersome laws to limit or make it hard to get that product.  This needs to be lead by the people fighting for change instead of creating even more complexities.

One last note - Free the Grapes does a great job - let all the wineries guide them to do a better job by fighting not only access, but access that is easy.

This entry was posted by Paul Mabray on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Compliance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.