Free the Grapes! Updates Wine Industry Code for Direct Shipping Practices
March 4th, 2007
Free the Grapes! recently updated its Wine Industry Code for Direct Shipping. The Code is a voluntary set of guidelines for direct to consumer wine shipments. The new Code, listed below, is fully endorsed by Wine Institute, Family Winemakers of California, and WineAmerica.
Wine Industry Code for Direct Shipping
- Out-of-state licensees may direct ship wine sold to adult consumers, for personal use, only in states where it is legal to do so.
- Out-of-state licensees must not ship to an address in an area identified by an appropriate state department of alcohol beverage control as a “dry” or local option area for such shipments.
- Cartons used to direct ship wine to adult consumers must be conspicuously labeled with a minimum notification “signature of person age 21 or older required for delivery” and must include a return address and other language required by specific state laws. Licensees may opt to further identify the contents, including words such as “wine enclosed” or “contains alcohol.” Free the Grapes! recommends that wineries support shippers, fulfillment companies and freight consolidators who utilize this labeling procedure.
- 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.
- Wineries must comply with all anti-spam legislation. For example, some states have enacted laws designed to prevent wine-related emails that might be unintentionally sent to underage consumer who have registered on a “do not email” database, and requires wineries to have their email lists scrubbed against a database of “do not email” lists.
- Free the Grapes! encourages licensees to contract only with shippers who check the identification of recipients at the time of delivery to ensure that the recipient is 21 years of age or older.
- All out-of-state licensees must report to the appropriate state authority the total of wine shipped into the state the preceding calendar year, as required by state law. Additionally, as required by state law, out-of-state shipper licensees must pay the appropriate state agency sales and excise taxes due on sales to residents of that state in the preceding calendar year.
- Out-of-state licensees should offer consumers resources for answering their questions about direct shipping, including Free the Grapes! (www.freethegrapes.org), Wine Institute (www.wineinstitute.org), Family Winemakers of California (www.familywinemakers.org), WineAmerica (www.wineamerica.org), and Specialty Wine Retailers Association (www.specialtywineretailers.org), among other resources.
- Free the Grapes! encourages wineries to conspicuously post this code and train employees, to increase the knowledge of and appreciation for, the industry’s responsibilities in direct shipping.
- Wineries, their agents, retailers, fulfillment companies, freight consolidators and other shippers who do not abide by this voluntary code of business practices are not in compliance with wine industry sanctioned standards. Non-compliance undermines the wine industry’s desire to: a) fulfill consumer demand, b) comply with government regulations and controls, and c) support a dynamic distribution system which embraces both the efficiencies of the traditional three tier system, and the evolution of a dynamic, direct-to-consumer marketplace.
The new addition to the Code is step 4, which specifies that wineries should verify the age of the purchaser of the wine at the time of transaction for all off-site transactions (Internet, phone, mail, fax, etc.). This can be done either by obtaining a photocopy of the purchaser’s drivers license or by using an approved online age verification vendor such as ChoicePoint or IDology.
We highly recommend that wineries and wine shippers fully abide by this voluntary Code. Free the Grapes! works very hard to fight for access to wine shipping in new states and to ease burdensome restrictions in states where shipping is already allowed. If any of the 5,600+ wineries across the country are exposed making “under the table”, or non-compliant shipments, it significantly undermines the efforts of Free the Grapes! and the trade associations.
