Lovers of wine, and of free markets, toasted a Supreme Court decision yesterday that struck down bans on home deliveries from out-of-state vineyards. But in Maryland, the hangover came in a hurry.
Wine aficionados here are not expected to benefit from the court's widely anticipated decision because Maryland is one of a handful of states that outlaw all direct wine shipments, whether from homegrown wineries or out-of-state vineyards.
In its 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court said it is discriminatory for states that allow in-state wine shipments to prohibit deliveries from wineries in other parts of the country. For Maryland consumers, that distinction put the cork back in the bottle.
"It's a large misconception that with this decision people can pick up the phone and order a bottle of wine," said Rob Deford, president of Boordy Vineyards in Baltimore County. "Nothing has changed in Maryland."
At Bin 604, an Inner Harbor wine store, manager Tim Spivey offered frank analysis: "The decision laid out was about evenhandedness," he said. "Maryland is pretty evenhanded by not allowing anyone to do anything. We live in the Dark Ages here."
The ruling overturned laws in Michigan and New York, where officials have tried to balance promoting state-made wines with enforcing underage drinking laws. Across the country, 24 states have laws barring interstate wine shipments, though many allow in-state deliveries.
In those states, legislatures will have to review whether their laws put in-state and out-of-state wineries on equal footing. States could decide to allow all wineries to ship to consumers directly to ensure even competition or they could bar all direct wine shipments - what at least one Michigan official suggested yesterday was a likely outcome.
"If a state chooses to allow direct shipments of wine, it must do so on evenhanded terms," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion, joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and Antonin Scalia.
"The current patchwork of laws - with some states banning direct shipments altogether, others doing so only for out-of-state wines and still others requiring reciprocity - is essentially the product of an ongoing, low-level trade war," he wrote.
The decision is not expected to bring a change in Maryland law, said a spokesman for state Comptroller William Donald Schaefer. The state bars direct shipping of wine to protect revenue now collected by liquor wholesalers and to keep teens from buying alcohol.
Maryland is one of five states in which direct shipments are prohibited and considered a felony, according to the National Association of American Wineries. The others are Florida, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee.
"Our initial look at this decision seems to say it only affects those states that discriminate against out-of-state shippers in favor of in-state wineries," said comptroller spokesman Michael Golden. "In Maryland, we prohibit direct shipment by either out-of-state or in-state wineries. It appears the decision won't have any significant impact on Maryland practices."
Still, the state's small wineries welcomed the decision. They said it could help draw consumer attention to Maryland's restrictive alcohol laws and pressure lawmakers to make changes that would allow the state's winemakers to be more competitive in the fast-growing business of boutique vineyards.
Kevin Atticks, executive director of the Maryland Wineries Association, said that easing shipping restrictions could enable the state's small wineries to increase sales by up to 15 percent.
"The sympathy of the court does clearly seem to be with the small family wineries and the difficulty they have in reaching consumers around the country," said Boordy's Deford. "The market is very dispersed. Our vision is for a common market for wine within the 50 states."
The booming wine market has forced many states to reconsider Prohibition-era rules on alcohol shipment.
Writing for the majority, Kennedy noted that there are about 3,000 wineries in the country - three times the number 30 years ago - and that the Federal Trade Commission has pointed to state bans on interstate shipping as "the single largest regulatory barrier to expanded e-commerce in wine."
The Michigan and New York rules that were at issue were slightly different, but the effect was the same, the court said: to "allow local wineries to make direct sales to consumers ... on terms not available to out-of-state wineries."
"Time and again this court has held that, in all but the narrowest circumstances, state laws violate the Commerce Clause if they mandate differential treatment of in-state and out-of-state economic interests that benefits the former and burdens the latter," Kennedy wrote.
The ruling dismissed as a nonissue concerns about wine shipments contributing to the problem of underage drinking. Underage drinkers, the court said, are more likely to pick up a beer or some other type of liquor than a glass of wine.
