Wine Wars

Lynne Kiesling

Todd Zywicki’s return to private life includes an eight-part series of posts on the legal history of wine shipment regulation and interstate commerce in the U.S. over at The Volokh Conspiracy. As a public service, and to increase the probability of more people reading Todd’s wonderful and illuminating analysis, here are the links all in one place:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Supplementary materials

This material is hugely helpful in preparation for the Supreme Court’s upcoming hearing of the cases against the interstate wine shipment bans in several states. Todd argues:

[T]here is no persuasive policy goal to justify discriminatory bans that permit direct shipment by in-state wineries but prohibit out-of-state wineries. New York, for instance, has 200 farm wineries shipping directly to consumers and has not proffered any evidence that consumers can only get drunk on California wines but not New York wines. Given the absence of any reasonable justification for these laws, the next question is whether the 21st Amendment nonetheless permits states to engage in this arbitrary discrimination, notwithstanding the dormant commerce clause.