—Nationwide Affiliation of Wine Retailers Urges Amendments or Opposition—
June 11, 2025 (Dover, DE) — Since 2022, greater than 240,000 imported wines have been authorised by the federal authorities on the market in the US. This quantity doesn’t embody the numerous hundreds of imported wines, together with uncommon, collectible, and small manufacturing imported wines that had been authorised on the market prior and are nonetheless accessible at numerous wine retailers. None of those wines shall be accessible to Delaware shoppers through direct cargo beneath the newly proposed regulation that permits shipments of wine to Delaware wine lovers.
The Nationwide Affiliation of Wine Retailers (NAWR) opposes Delaware Home Invoice 187 resulting from its exclusion of wine retailers from the transport provisions within the laws. With solely home wineries given the privilege to ship beneath this laws, the invoice is wildly anti-consumer and anti-free commerce.
Moreover, HB 187 seems to be little greater than a present to opponents of wine transport. Though the invoice permits wineries to ship as much as 1,800 instances into the state yearly, if greater than 200 instances are shipped by a vineyard, the price of the transport license will increase from $400 to $3,600. Lastly, the invoice gives that if a vineyard already has a wholesaler within the state, it could not direct ship in any respect and if a vineyard does ship greater than 1,800 instances to Delawareans in a single yr, that vineyard is barred from direct cargo and should retain a wholesaler as its solely manner of coming into the Delaware market.
Delaware Invoice Would Ban Wine Shipments from Wine Retailers and Retailers “HB 187 is by far one of many worst, most exclusionary, and most anti-consumer wine transport payments we have now seen launched in many years,” mentioned Tom Wark, government director of NAWR. “Barring Delaware wine lovers from accessing tons of of hundreds of wines on account of banning retailers from transport together with wineries is a purely protectionist transfer that solely helps the massive union pursuits and state wholesalers.”
Among the many wines that Delawareans could be barred from receiving beneath this invoice resulting from its exclusion of shops are Champagne, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Barolo, Port, Sherry, Rioja, Argentine Malbec, German Riesling, Canadian Ice Wine, Rhone Blends, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, and Australian Shiraz, together with each different imported wine and the overwhelming majority of uncommon and collectible wines bought by retailers in the US.
“Within the yr 2025, shoppers count on to have the ability to purchase and obtain shipments of the authorized merchandise they need and to not be banned from receiving sure wines in order that large marketing campaign contributors may be protected against competitors,” mentioned Wark. “Laws of this type must put shoppers and free commerce first, not the pursuits of the loudest lobbyists with the deepest pockets.”
NAWR is urging Delaware lawmakers to supply amendments to HB 187 to make it pro-consumer and pro-business or oppose the invoice altogether.
