Amazon wine

You may soon be able to order wine from Amazon.com, depending on where you live.

Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -0.88% is planning an online marketplace for wine sales directly to consumers, said executives for several California wineries, marking the Seattle Web giant’s second foray into the business in three years.

Amazon hosted a workshop [last week] at a resort in Napa, Calif., and invited members of the Napa Valley Vintners association, said Terry Hall, a spokesman for the group. He said about 100 wineries attended the event.

At the event, Amazon said the marketplace would begin in the coming weeks and the online retailer will charge wineries a 15% commission of the sale price, as well as a monthly fee of about $40, according to people familiar with the workshop.

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In 2009, Amazon pulled back from an effort to sell and ship wine after its partner, New Vine Logistics, suspended operations amid financial troubles. This latest effort would spare Amazon the cost and difficulty of shipping fragile and heavy wine bottles by passing that responsibility on to the vineyards themselves.

Wine sales online are challenging due to a patchwork of state-by-state rules that limit which companies can sell alcoholic beverages. And shippers must ensure that recipients signing for packages are at least 21-years-old, the legal limit.

The question you may be asking now is “Will I be able to order wine through Amazon to be shipped to Texas?” And the answer is…I’m not sure. Last year, the TABC cracked down on out of state resellers who were shipping to Texas without a state sales tax permit. The TABC addresses the question of direct shipping of wine to Texas consumers, and one of the things they say is “Under current state law, wholesalers / distributors are not authorized to ship wine directly to consumers in Texas”. However, out of state wineries may ship to Texas if they obtain a direct shipper’s permit, pay sales and excise taxes, and ship to a TABC permitted carrier. So I guess the question is whether Amazon would be considered a wholesaler/distributor in this scenario, or if the fact that the wineries themselves are doing the shipping opens a loophole for this to be permitted. I sense a legislative opportunity here, or failing that, future litigation. Anyone want to be a test case?

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