Thoughts on the Supreme Court Ruling...from Robin Meredith of Broadfields Wine Cellars and The Tasting Room

"You might think that the current regulatory environment wouldn't have much of an impact on us, since we (The Tasting Room) are a group of boutique wineries producing extremely limited quantities of handcrafted wines. Unfortunately, that's not the case.  We turn away literally thousands of dollars of gift orders every December, and on an ongoing basis we have to tell visitors from Connecticut and New Jersey that they can't join our wine club.

This also has an impact on press coverage, since many writers outside the area are reluctant to devote any ink to Long Island wines unless their readers are able to buy them.  This ruling has the potential to break down that barrier, since anyone who wants to write about Long Island wines can just footnote the article with a list of web sites.

Of course, I'm a pessimist, so I also think we shouldn't celebrate too soon, since as far as I can tell this is only half the battle.  We still need to work with key states to ensure that regulations are enacted that will make it feasible for small wineries to actually ship wine (e.g. if I have to purchase a $500 annual permit to ship wine into Vermont I'm going to think twice about it)."

-- Robin Meredith, Owner, Broadfields Wine Cellars and The Tasting Room