Where Will Amazon Ship Wine?

Inquiring reader Jack d'Agostino asks: Where will Amazon be shipping wine?

New Vine Logistics, who will apparently be doing fulfillment for Amazon, claims that they can deliver wine in 45 states.  Press reports have stated that Amazon will ship wine to 25 or 26 states.  There are currently 15 states where direct shipment of wine is prohibited (Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah), plus one state (Kansas) where you must purchase the wine on-site.  The Wine Institute has more details on each state's shipping laws.

My best guess is that Amazon will be shipping to the 26 states whose state laws were unaffected by the Supreme Court decision in Granholm vs. Heald, namely:

1. Alaska
2. California
3. Colorado
4. Georgia
5. Hawaii
6. Idaho
7. Illinois
8. Iowa
9. Louisiana
10. Minnesota
11. Missouri
12. Nebraska
13. Nevada
14. New Hampshire
15. New Mexico
16. North Carolina
17. North Dakota
18. Oregon
19. Rhode Island
20. South Carolina
21. Texas
22. Virginia
23. Washington
24. West Virginia
25. Wisconsin
26. Wyoming

This represents the last-likely-to-cause-problems approach, which makes good sense.

Of course, since Amazon has made no official announcement, and New Vine Logistics refers all questions to Amazon, this is (educated) speculation.  It will be interesting to see where they roll out initially, and what happens over time as a result of Amazon's entry into the marketplace.

(Astute readers will notice that eight states -- Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Vermont -- are not part of the 15 + 1 + 26.)

Comments

[tom merle]

Randy,

You've done a sterling job ferreting out the most likely states, based on the Supreme Court ruling. However....NVL has a highly oiled three tier system that satisfies state law where direct shipping per se is prohibited. So I would suspect that FL, NY, MI, CT, OH will probably be on the list.

TOM

[Will Lynch]

I own a wine shop in Texas and there are some Texas laws that will make it almost impossible for Amazon to sell in Texas.

[Mike Duffy]

Tom: (Randy?) I understand your point, but I was trying to reconcile the published number with what we know of state laws, the Supreme Court ruling, and NVL's published capability.

Will: I believe NVL works through the three-tier system in Texas. I have some friends that own a WineStyles in Fort Worth, so I completely understand your point.

Thank you both for taking the time to read and comment!

[Scott]

So sounds like you are on the NVL band wagon are you on their PR staff? Rumor is they have opportunities with getting wineries to participate in their 3 tier model and are muddying things up with the hype. Any thruth to that?

[Mike Duffy]

Actually, the reason I posted the release was to provide the Amazon contact information, which my winery readers have asked about.

I wouldn't say I'm on the bandwagon -- it's Amazon's choice. Note that New Vine Logistics (NVL) has a prior relationship to WineShopper.com, in which Amazon invested $30 million or so.

I think that NVL addresses a lot of issues which Amazon would have to contend with on their own. Initially, I believed that Amazon would do wine fulfillment in-house, but I think they were able to negotiate a deal with NVL which changed the "make or buy" decision for them. Right now, they're buying services from NVL, which makes it easy to back out (I'd bet the contact is written this way). If wine is a successful marketplace for Amazon, they might well purchase NVL at some future point (or otherwise revisit the make-buy decision).

I don't have any direct experience with NVL (and I don't think very much of their Web site, as far as making it easy to get information). I do know that Inertia Beverages (who I respect) uses The Wine Tasting Network (WTN) and Copper Mountain Logistics for fulfillment. So there are alternatives to NVL out there.