Mass. Law Barring Wine Shipments Ruled Unconstitutional

Massachusetts consumers may soon be able to order wine online and have it shipped directly from out-of-state wineries after the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the state’s latest attempt to control such shipments.

The Associated Press reported Jan. 15 that the court ruled that a 2006 law that forced larger winemakers to choose between selling through retailers or getting a license to ship directly to consumers was a violation of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The law was carefully crafted to exempt wineries located within Massachusetts from the requirement by making it applicable only to companies that produce 30,000 gallons of wine or more per year.

“We hold that (the law) violates the Commerce Clause because the effect of its particular gallonage cap is to change the competitive balance between in-state and out-of-state wineries in a way that benefits Massachusetts’s wineries and significantly burdens out-of-state competitors,” the ruling stated. The appeals court upheld the decision of a lower court.

The Massachusetts law was passed after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 struck down bans on wine shipments on the books in New York and Michigan.