Supreme Court Clears the Way For Wine To Flow In And Out Of States

The Supreme Court gave a cork-popping victory to the wine industry May 16, striking down state laws that barred consumers from receiving direct shipment of wines from out-of-state wineries.

And the decision is likely to elevate e-sales of wine, according to an attorney who specializes in online business. Some vintners in New York state, one of the states involved in the litigation that the Supreme Court settled last month, estimate online wine sales tipping up by 5%. The Empire State is the nation's third-largest producer of grapes for wine and grape juice, after California and Washington.

“This is the best day for wine-lovers since the invention of the corkscrew,” says Clint Bolick, the strategic litigation counsel for the Institute for Justice, who argued before the Court on behalf of Virginia winemaker Juanita Swedenburg. Swedenburg was barred from shipping her wines to New York customers because of that state's law ' similar to the laws of more than 20 other states ' that allows only in-state wineries to ship wines to New Yorkers.

e-Commerce Impact

Sarah Hewitt, a partner with Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner in New York City who specializes in online commerce, says the Supreme Court decision is good in general for e-commerce, and particularly good for wine lovers.

“It's definitely going to help e-commerce in the alcoholic-beverages area,” Hewitt told e-Commerce Law & Strategy. “I've heard from some out there that wineries in Long Island are looking for an increase in sales ' they're talking about 5%, and although that might seem like a small number, the 5, 5% of any figure with a billion in it is a lot of money.”

Various sources put the value of annual U.S. wine sales at $18 billion to $23 billion. According to Gladys Horiuchi, a spokeswoman for the Wine Institute, a California lobby, direct sales of wine, which include e-commerce transactions, account for about 1% to 2% of all wine sales. In California, wine purchases in winery tasting rooms accounted for 68% of 2003 direct sales, according to MKF, a research firm that examines wine sales trends and advises the wine industry. Twenty-two percent of direct sales were through wine clubs, 12% by mailing list ' and 2% by Internet, up from 1% in 2002.

The Wine Institute, which filed an amicus brief in the dispute, ranked New York and Michigan third and 10th, respectively, in U.S. wine consumption. The Supreme Court ruling ' although it didn't address Internet sales ' signals a significant potential e-commerce sales boon, knowledgeable sources say. The Wine Institute says that the decision would most immediately and dramatically benefit small family-owned and -operated wineries nationally.

For some economic perspective on the states involved in the cases, which the Court heard under the title of Granholm v. Heald, New York state's 2002 grape crop was worth $43.3 million, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Markets. Of that crop, two-thirds was used for grape juice, and one-third went into wines. New York has four regions where wine is produced, with those areas heavy in the kind of small wineries most affected by the May 16 decision ' because they lack the distribution networks big producers have and can't move product into retail outlets, and therefore depend on direct sales. The New York grape areas are the region around Lake Erie, the Finger Lakes of upstate New York, the Hudson Valley region north of New York City and the eastern end of Long Island. The state has more than 200 wineries.

Hewitt says that New York has a strong wine lobby and that legislators seem to favor changing the law to allow sales ' one of two options under the Supreme Court's ruling, which said that states cannot discriminate, but must either allow intra and interstate direct commerce in wine from wineries, or forbid both. New York Governor George Pataki has at least twice introduced legislation to allow interstate direct-wine shipment to consumers from wineries, but the measures didn't make it through the state legislature.

Hewitt says that Michigan would probably opt to ban all direct-to-consumer sales from wineries. Michigan is right behind New York in grape production, with the bulk of its grapes used for grape juice and about 1.5% of the state's 13,500 vineyard acres geared toward wine production.

The state has 40 commercial wineries, according to the state-created Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council. Michigan's annual grape crop is worth about $25 million, according to the state agriculture department.

The decision will also likely increase e-commerce activity by changing the lopsided exchange among so-called “reciprocity” states that sell to out-of-state consumers, but not to buyers in states whose laws forbid such transactions. If those states change their laws to allow out-of-state purchases ' instead of banning all sales ' e-commerce wine sales can only increase.

Hewitt says she wasn't sure what impact the decision would have on the online sale of alcohol other than wine.

“I don't know about beers,” she says. “I would imagine that it would help some of the beer clubs, but they're probably not as widespread as the wine clubs.”

The decision will also help such online wine-sales hubs as wine.com, and wine auction sites.

The Wine Institute says that California was the first state, in 1985, to allow interstate wine shipment. Twenty-seven states allow direct shipment of wine to consumers, the Institute noted on a press release on its Web site, http://www.wineinstitute.org/. The Golden State is the world's fourth-largest wine producer, behind France, Italy and Spain. (See, “What Wines Mean To California”.)

As for how the decision will affect other areas of regulated online commerce, Hewitt says that the real estate industry most probably has taken notice.

“That's the sector that will really be looking out for changes ' the next step. Real estate has tried to attract customers with the promise that you'll never have to leave the comfort of your favorite chair to buy a house,” but there are restrictions.

The Case and The Reasoning

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit upheld the New York law, while the 6th Circuit struck down a similar Michigan law. The Supreme Court ruled in both cases in Granholm v. Heald. (For some background on the cases and the issue, see, “Supreme Court May Be Ready To Uncork Interstate Wine Sales,” in the January edition of e-Commerce Law & Strategy.)

The 5-4 decision caps a 20-year campaign by the wine industry to overturn the protective laws passed by states that barred out-of-state winery imports to consumers. Counsel should bear in mind that last month's ruling doesn't affect e-commerce wine sales where they are allowed between consumers and retailers.

But laws barring out-of-state wine sales to residents of states that forbid the practice, Justice Anthony Kennedy said for the majority, amount to “straightforward attempts to discriminate in favor of local producers” in violation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. For the majority, the Commerce Clause argument trumped the post-Prohibition 21st Amendment, which handed states explicit power to regulate imports. That amendment gives states “broad power,” Kennedy said, but “does not supersede other provisions of the Constitution and, in particular, does not displace the rule that states may not give a discriminatory preference to their own producers.”

Kennedy was careful to say that the May 16 ruling does not upset the three-tier distribution system for alcohol ' producer to wholesaler to retailer ' that governs sales nationwide. But the ruling will likely rearrange aspects of the wine-and-liquor marketplace, and give a sharp boost to Internet wine sales, which have been hampered by a patchwork of state laws.

Battle Won, War Continues

Still, advocates of interstate sales cautioned that much work remains in adjusting state laws to last month's ruling, and not all states may respond by throwing their borders open. The ruling demands equal treatment for in-state and out-of-state producers seeking to ship directly to consumers ' a mandate that could also be met by forbidding direct sales by both.

“Discriminatory laws were eliminated with one fell swoop, but what the ruling doesn't decide is what the landscape will look like afterward,” says former Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan, now Of Counsel at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges in Silicon Valley, CA.

She also argued on behalf of the wine industry before the high court.

“Will they level up or level down? Our guess is that the horse is out of the barn and consumers will want these shipments.”

But, as in every legal or ideological dispute, each side has its champions. Miguel Estrada, partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, DC, for instance, sharply disagrees with experts who believe the Supreme Court's decision will unstop winery-to-consumer direct commerce, predicting that most states will respond by barring all shipments to in-state consumers.

“I find it hard to believe that states will now let everything in, instead of making everyone go through the wholesaler and the three-tier system,” says Estrada, who represented New York liquor wholesalers and retailers in support of the state law.

James Seff, partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in San Francisco, who wrote a brief in the case for the Wine Institute, also predicts that a wide range of legal issues will flow from the ruling.

“What would prevent a California distributor from shipping to a New York retailer?” asks Seff. “This ruling by no means denies job security for people who work on these issues.”

What About Foreign Shipments?

Another issue the ruling leaves open for the future, says Seff: Direct shipment to U.S. customers by foreign wineries.

The Court made short shrift of the main justifications that the states offered to defend their restrictions on direct shipment, namely curbing sales to minors, and guaranteeing effective state regulation and taxation of producers.

Kennedy said states had offered no evidence that pointed toward endangerment of minors, who, he said, “are less likely to consume wine, as opposed to beer, wine coolers, and hard liquor.”

Brown Raysman's Hewitt agrees that opponents' argument that online wine sales might lead to more minors getting access to wine or to increased incidence of alcoholism, for instance, were weak.

“This will be a big deal for people who collect wine, the real connoisseurs,” Hewitt says. “But there probably aren't many minors or other people who are going online to buy wine and willing to wait a week to get it.”

Even if the endangerment-of-minors argument were valid, Justice Kennedy said, it would not justify allowing shipment by in-state wineries while forbidding out-of-state wine shipments.

Kennedy's opinion won an unusual array of supporters on the Court – Justices Antonin Scalia, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Dissenting were Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Reviewing the history of the 21st Amendment, the dissenters argued that the amendment, combined with subsequent federal legislation, in the words of Thomas, “took those policy choices away from judges and returned them to the states.”

Technology Helps Promote NY Wine

Although the matter appeared unrelated to the opinion, the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets last month held a video conference with officials and potential wine customers in the Czech Republic in what the state called its first “virtual wine tasting.”

New York Agriculture Commissioner Nathan L. Rudgers says the event, in which possible Czech patrons of New York wineries sampled Empire vintages at the U.S. Embassy in Prague while state agriculture and wine-industry representatives did the same in Geneva, NY, was a chance to use technology to advance commerce. The virtual experience was provided by satellite television, one element in an array of technology the state agriculture station in Geneva has, according to a spokeswoman.

“We are continually seeking ways to help our producers find new markets for their products and modern technology has enabled us to enter markets in ways previously thought unimaginable,” Rudgers was quoted as saying in a press release posted on the Agriculture Department's Web site. “Today, we gather in our own Finger Lakes region to experience wine simultaneously with buyers from half way around the world. It is an exciting opportunity, helping our vintners market their fine New York State wines to a new group of potential buyers and wine enthusiasts.”

Jessica Chittenden, a spokeswoman for New York's agricultural department, told e-Commerce Law & Strategy that the 40 potential buyers at the sampling of the New York wines in Prague included William J. Cabaniss, U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic, who is a wine aficionado. It was 3 p.m. in Prague, and 9 a.m. in New York. Six wineries took part.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service says that U.S. wine exports to the Czech Republic are growing quickly and that the service expects increases. The Czech Republic imports about half the wine it consumes. In fact, the USDA says that wine has at least partially replaced Czech beer in the nation as people's first choice of alcoholic beverage. The department notes that with higher disposable income in the formerly communist nation, and the availability of higher-quality wines, New York labels are enjoying a rise in popularity among New World wines that are also increasingly purchased and consumed there. The rate of import tariff to the Czech Republic dropped from 35% to about 7% or 8% when the country joined the European Union last year, lowering commerce barriers, and opening the door to more legal work for firms that advise e-commerce businesses.

“This is a unique, low-cost opportunity for local wineries to showcase their products in a foreign market that is experiencing solid growth in wine consumption,” Erin Cole, director of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Rochester Export Assistance Center, says.

Chittenden says that New York hopes to hold more virtual wine-tastings, with Ireland, Spain and Japan as possible venues.

The six participating wineries received consultations from coordinators on export regulations and restrictions, freight-forwarding and marketing-assistance opportunities, the state Agriculture Department noted ' other avenues for e-commerce attorneys.

What Wine Means to California

Wine is California's leading finished agricultural product. The figures below come from the Wine Institute's revised March report. The figures are based on 2002 statistics.

• Full impact on the state economy = $45.4 billion* (total revenue, including for restaurants, bottlers, etc.)
• Wineries = 1,294 (bricks and mortar)
• Grape growers = 4,805
• Full-time equivalent jobs = 207,550
• Wages paid = $7.6 billion
• Wine produced (750ml bottles) = 3.12 billion
• Retail value of California wine = $15.2 billion**
• Wine sales growth rate = 5.4% (compound annual rate, 1998-2002)
• Tourism expenditures = $1.3 billion
• Visitors = 14.8 million
• Taxes paid (California/total) = $1.9 billion/$5.6 billion
• Charitable contributions = $73 million

*Sum of total spending
** Excludes exports

Source: Wine Institute.

• Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner ' http://www.brownraysman.com/
• Embassy of the Czech Republic in Washington ' www.mzv.cz/washington
• Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher ' http://www.gdclaw.com/
• Michigan Department of Agriculture ' www.michigan.gov/mda
• Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council ' http://www.michiganwines.com/
• MKF ' http://www.mkf.com/
• New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets ' http://www.agmkt.state.ny.us/
• Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman ' http://www.pillsburylaw.com/
• Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges ' http://www.quinnemanuel.com/
• U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service ' http://www.fas.usda.gov/
• U.S. Embassy in the Czech Republic (Prague) ' http://prague.usembassy.gov/
• U.S. Supreme Court ' http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
• Wine Institute ' http://www.wineinstitute.com/

The Supreme Court gave a cork-popping victory to the wine industry May 16, striking down state laws that barred consumers from receiving direct shipment of wines from out-of-state wineries.

And the decision is likely to elevate e-sales of wine, according to an attorney who specializes in online business. Some vintners in New York state, one of the states involved in the litigation that the Supreme Court settled last month, estimate online wine sales tipping up by 5%. The Empire State is the nation's third-largest producer of grapes for wine and grape juice, after California and Washington.

“This is the best day for wine-lovers since the invention of the corkscrew,” says Clint Bolick, the strategic litigation counsel for the Institute for Justice, who argued before the Court on behalf of Virginia winemaker Juanita Swedenburg. Swedenburg was barred from shipping her wines to New York customers because of that state's law ' similar to the laws of more than 20 other states ' that allows only in-state wineries to ship wines to New Yorkers.

e-Commerce Impact

Sarah Hewitt, a partner with Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner in New York City who specializes in online commerce, says the Supreme Court decision is good in general for e-commerce, and particularly good for wine lovers.

“It's definitely going to help e-commerce in the alcoholic-beverages area,” Hewitt told e-Commerce Law & Strategy. “I've heard from some out there that wineries in Long Island are looking for an increase in sales ' they're talking about 5%, and although that might seem like a small number, the 5, 5% of any figure with a billion in it is a lot of money.”

Various sources put the value of annual U.S. wine sales at $18 billion to $23 billion. According to Gladys Horiuchi, a spokeswoman for the Wine Institute, a California lobby, direct sales of wine, which include e-commerce transactions, account for about 1% to 2% of all wine sales. In California, wine purchases in winery tasting rooms accounted for 68% of 2003 direct sales, according to MKF, a research firm that examines wine sales trends and advises the wine industry. Twenty-two percent of direct sales were through wine clubs, 12% by mailing list ' and 2% by Internet, up from 1% in 2002.

The Wine Institute, which filed an amicus brief in the dispute, ranked New York and Michigan third and 10th, respectively, in U.S. wine consumption. The Supreme Court ruling ' although it didn't address Internet sales ' signals a significant potential e-commerce sales boon, knowledgeable sources say. The Wine Institute says that the decision would most immediately and dramatically benefit small family-owned and -operated wineries nationally.

For some economic perspective on the states involved in the cases, which the Court heard under the title of Granholm v. Heald, New York state's 2002 grape crop was worth $43.3 million, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Markets. Of that crop, two-thirds was used for grape juice, and one-third went into wines. New York has four regions where wine is produced, with those areas heavy in the kind of small wineries most affected by the May 16 decision ' because they lack the distribution networks big producers have and can't move product into retail outlets, and therefore depend on direct sales. The New York grape areas are the region around Lake Erie, the Finger Lakes of upstate New York, the Hudson Valley region north of New York City and the eastern end of Long Island. The state has more than 200 wineries.

Hewitt says that New York has a strong wine lobby and that legislators seem to favor changing the law to allow sales ' one of two options under the Supreme Court's ruling, which said that states cannot discriminate, but must either allow intra and interstate direct commerce in wine from wineries, or forbid both. New York Governor George Pataki has at least twice introduced legislation to allow interstate direct-wine shipment to consumers from wineries, but the measures didn't make it through the state legislature.

Hewitt says that Michigan would probably opt to ban all direct-to-consumer sales from wineries. Michigan is right behind New York in grape production, with the bulk of its grapes used for grape juice and about 1.5% of the state's 13,500 vineyard acres geared toward wine production.

The state has 40 commercial wineries, according to the state-created Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council. Michigan's annual grape crop is worth about $25 million, according to the state agriculture department.

The decision will also likely increase e-commerce activity by changing the lopsided exchange among so-called “reciprocity” states that sell to out-of-state consumers, but not to buyers in states whose laws forbid such transactions. If those states change their laws to allow out-of-state purchases ' instead of banning all sales ' e-commerce wine sales can only increase.

Hewitt says she wasn't sure what impact the decision would have on the online sale of alcohol other than wine.

“I don't know about beers,” she says. “I would imagine that it would help some of the beer clubs, but they're probably not as widespread as the wine clubs.”

The decision will also help such online wine-sales hubs as wine.com, and wine auction sites.

The Wine Institute says that California was the first state, in 1985, to allow interstate wine shipment. Twenty-seven states allow direct shipment of wine to consumers, the Institute noted on a press release on its Web site, http://www.wineinstitute.org/. The Golden State is the world's fourth-largest wine producer, behind France, Italy and Spain. (See, “What Wines Mean To California”.)

As for how the decision will affect other areas of regulated online commerce, Hewitt says that the real estate industry most probably has taken notice.

“That's the sector that will really be looking out for changes ' the next step. Real estate has tried to attract customers with the promise that you'll never have to leave the comfort of your favorite chair to buy a house,” but there are restrictions.

The Case and The Reasoning

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit upheld the New York law, while the 6th Circuit struck down a similar Michigan law. The Supreme Court ruled in both cases in Granholm v. Heald. (For some background on the cases and the issue, see, “Supreme Court May Be Ready To Uncork Interstate Wine Sales,” in the January edition of e-Commerce Law & Strategy.)

The 5-4 decision caps a 20-year campaign by the wine industry to overturn the protective laws passed by states that barred out-of-state winery imports to consumers. Counsel should bear in mind that last month's ruling doesn't affect e-commerce wine sales where they are allowed between consumers and retailers.

But laws barring out-of-state wine sales to residents of states that forbid the practice, Justice Anthony Kennedy said for the majority, amount to “straightforward attempts to discriminate in favor of local producers” in violation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. For the majority, the Commerce Clause argument trumped the post-Prohibition 21st Amendment, which handed states explicit power to regulate imports. That amendment gives states “broad power,” Kennedy said, but “does not supersede other provisions of the Constitution and, in particular, does not displace the rule that states may not give a discriminatory preference to their own producers.”

Kennedy was careful to say that the May 16 ruling does not upset the three-tier distribution system for alcohol ' producer to wholesaler to retailer ' that governs sales nationwide. But the ruling will likely rearrange aspects of the wine-and-liquor marketplace, and give a sharp boost to Internet wine sales, which have been hampered by a patchwork of state laws.

Battle Won, War Continues

Still, advocates of interstate sales cautioned that much work remains in adjusting state laws to last month's ruling, and not all states may respond by throwing their borders open. The ruling demands equal treatment for in-state and out-of-state producers seeking to ship directly to consumers ' a mandate that could also be met by forbidding direct sales by both.

“Discriminatory laws were eliminated with one fell swoop, but what the ruling doesn't decide is what the landscape will look like afterward,” says former Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan, now Of Counsel at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges in Silicon Valley, CA.

She also argued on behalf of the wine industry before the high court.

“Will they level up or level down? Our guess is that the horse is out of the barn and consumers will want these shipments.”

But, as in every legal or ideological dispute, each side has its champions. Miguel Estrada, partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, DC, for instance, sharply disagrees with experts who believe the Supreme Court's decision will unstop winery-to-consumer direct commerce, predicting that most states will respond by barring all shipments to in-state consumers.

“I find it hard to believe that states will now let everything in, instead of making everyone go through the wholesaler and the three-tier system,” says Estrada, who represented New York liquor wholesalers and retailers in support of the state law.

James Seff, partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in San Francisco, who wrote a brief in the case for the Wine Institute, also predicts that a wide range of legal issues will flow from the ruling.

“What would prevent a California distributor from shipping to a New York retailer?” asks Seff. “This ruling by no means denies job security for people who work on these issues.”

What About Foreign Shipments?

Another issue the ruling leaves open for the future, says Seff: Direct shipment to U.S. customers by foreign wineries.

The Court made short shrift of the main justifications that the states offered to defend their restrictions on direct shipment, namely curbing sales to minors, and guaranteeing effective state regulation and taxation of producers.

Kennedy said states had offered no evidence that pointed toward endangerment of minors, who, he said, “are less likely to consume wine, as opposed to beer, wine coolers, and hard liquor.”

Brown Raysman's Hewitt agrees that opponents' argument that online wine sales might lead to more minors getting access to wine or to increased incidence of alcoholism, for instance, were weak.

“This will be a big deal for people who collect wine, the real connoisseurs,” Hewitt says. “But there probably aren't many minors or other people who are going online to buy wine and willing to wait a week to get it.”

Even if the endangerment-of-minors argument were valid, Justice Kennedy said, it would not justify allowing shipment by in-state wineries while forbidding out-of-state wine shipments.

Kennedy's opinion won an unusual array of supporters on the Court – Justices Antonin Scalia, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Dissenting were Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

Reviewing the history of the 21st Amendment, the dissenters argued that the amendment, combined with subsequent federal legislation, in the words of Thomas, “took those policy choices away from judges and returned them to the states.”

Technology Helps Promote NY Wine

Although the matter appeared unrelated to the opinion, the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets last month held a video conference with officials and potential wine customers in the Czech Republic in what the state called its first “virtual wine tasting.”

New York Agriculture Commissioner Nathan L. Rudgers says the event, in which possible Czech patrons of New York wineries sampled Empire vintages at the U.S. Embassy in Prague while state agriculture and wine-industry representatives did the same in Geneva, NY, was a chance to use technology to advance commerce. The virtual experience was provided by satellite television, one element in an array of technology the state agriculture station in Geneva has, according to a spokeswoman.

“We are continually seeking ways to help our producers find new markets for their products and modern technology has enabled us to enter markets in ways previously thought unimaginable,” Rudgers was quoted as saying in a press release posted on the Agriculture Department's Web site. “Today, we gather in our own Finger Lakes region to experience wine simultaneously with buyers from half way around the world. It is an exciting opportunity, helping our vintners market their fine New York State wines to a new group of potential buyers and wine enthusiasts.”

Jessica Chittenden, a spokeswoman for New York's agricultural department, told e-Commerce Law & Strategy that the 40 potential buyers at the sampling of the New York wines in Prague included William J. Cabaniss, U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic, who is a wine aficionado. It was 3 p.m. in Prague, and 9 a.m. in New York. Six wineries took part.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service says that U.S. wine exports to the Czech Republic are growing quickly and that the service expects increases. The Czech Republic imports about half the wine it consumes. In fact, the USDA says that wine has at least partially replaced Czech beer in the nation as people's first choice of alcoholic beverage. The department notes that with higher disposable income in the formerly communist nation, and the availability of higher-quality wines, New York labels are enjoying a rise in popularity among New World wines that are also increasingly purchased and consumed there. The rate of import tariff to the Czech Republic dropped from 35% to about 7% or 8% when the country joined the European Union last year, lowering commerce barriers, and opening the door to more legal work for firms that advise e-commerce businesses.

“This is a unique, low-cost opportunity for local wineries to showcase their products in a foreign market that is experiencing solid growth in wine consumption,” Erin Cole, director of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Rochester Export Assistance Center, says.

Chittenden says that New York hopes to hold more virtual wine-tastings, with Ireland, Spain and Japan as possible venues.

The six participating wineries received consultations from coordinators on export regulations and restrictions, freight-forwarding and marketing-assistance opportunities, the state Agriculture Department noted ' other avenues for e-commerce attorneys.

What Wine Means to California

Wine is California's leading finished agricultural product. The figures below come from the Wine Institute's revised March report. The figures are based on 2002 statistics.

• Full impact on the state economy = $45.4 billion* (total revenue, including for restaurants, bottlers, etc.)
• Wineries = 1,294 (bricks and mortar)
• Grape growers = 4,805
• Full-time equivalent jobs = 207,550
• Wages paid = $7.6 billion
• Wine produced (750ml bottles) = 3.12 billion
• Retail value of California wine = $15.2 billion**
• Wine sales growth rate = 5.4% (compound annual rate, 1998-2002)
• Tourism expenditures = $1.3 billion
• Visitors = 14.8 million
• Taxes paid (California/total) = $1.9 billion/$5.6 billion
• Charitable contributions = $73 million

*Sum of total spending
** Excludes exports

Source: Wine Institute.

• Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner ' http://www.brownraysman.com/
• Embassy of the Czech Republic in Washington ' www.mzv.cz/washington
• Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher ' http://www.gdclaw.com/
• Michigan Department of Agriculture ' www.michigan.gov/mda
• Michigan Grape and Wine Industry Council ' http://www.michiganwines.com/
• MKF ' http://www.mkf.com/
• New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets ' http://www.agmkt.state.ny.us/
• Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman ' http://www.pillsburylaw.com/
• Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges ' http://www.quinnemanuel.com/
• U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service ' http://www.fas.usda.gov/
• U.S. Embassy in the Czech Republic (Prague) ' http://prague.usembassy.gov/
• U.S. Supreme Court ' http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
• Wine Institute ' http://www.wineinstitute.com/