Modern Day Wine Bootlegger 05/14/2010
Have you ever wanted to send your favorite bottle of wine to someone, maybe as a gift, or just to be able to share your favorite wine? Or have you ever visited wineries, gone through some wine tasting trails, enjoyed a bottle or three enough to purchase a case only to find out you have to lug it out of there, you can’t ship it to yourself? Since we are combining May and June so that we can change the publish date to the 1st of each month, Karen and I decided to do a more informational blog about shipping wine. Beginning on July 1st we will be back to our usual bizarre, humorous wine experiences. There are so many wine blogs out there now, I can’t believe it. Karen and I have been trying to be very strategic in our choice of wines to blog about. We try to choose between what we like, what’s the best price, how easy is it to get our hands on, how much fun it is to drink, etc etc. We feel it has to be a fun wine to drink, we both agree too, that has actually turned out to be every bottle we have each ever drank, tasted … looked at. I have found a wine that I absolutely love. Each time I drink it, it actually tastes the same. The problem is I only know of one location locally I can get it. I have found it online, but shipping bites. I want Karen to try this wine so badly that I figured I would have to mail her a bottle because I don’t believe she is going to be able to find it. Shipping wine, now that is an entire issue all in itself. I found an online company that would ship; however, they don’t ship to every state. Go figure. I even called them and confirmed it and the guy I spoke to double checked because he couldn’t believe it either. Evidently there are several states that certain companies can’t ship to. I went down to where I usually get the wine and asked them if they would ship it for me. They can’t ship wine period and recommended I ship it myself and call it cooking juice. They instructed me to purchase a special wine mailer from a local box company. If you can’t ship wine, why are there such things as wine mailers? Just curious. If I ship, will I be considered a modern day bootlegger? That sounds kinda fun actually. I mean, isn’t that how NASCAR began? I conducted a self search on Google of how to ship wine. According to UPS they are forbidden to ship wine in or out of Massachusetts, among other wine shipping guidelines. I found a site that did it’s best to give each state’s law on shipping wine. I randomly chose a few states and read about them. There are actually some states where it is a felony to ship wine into that state. Not a felony for the one shipping it, it’s a felony for the one receiving it. Crazy, right! It’s a good wine, but not that good. I had a good friend ship a bottle of home made Muscadine wine to me from Florida. We saved it for one of our Acoustic Uncorked Adventures, served it brown bag style, I over heard someone chatting about it and remarked to a friend that it tasted like garage wine. Later in the night we announced what it was and where it came from and then we dubbed it “Garage Wine” which we also think would make a great name for a wine company. So if anyone uses that name, send some royalties. When I received it, it was wrapped in a plastic bag, the cork was crazy, and it was encased in a huge blob of wax. Even though it had the cork and waxes to seal it, it still leaked a little or perspired into the plastic bag. By the way, that leakage created the aroma that caused me to almost not be able to save it for the Adventure. If you got a taste that night, consider yourself lucky. In re-reading that last paragraph I noticed in the first line, “I had a good friend ship a bottle of wine.” If you read it a different way it could read a good friendship over a bottle of wine.” Or something like that. In the end if the states would allow us to ship wine freely to each other I believe there would be a lot more friend ships, which would benefit the wineries, the stores who sell wine, the shipping companies, the delivery folks, and the friendships that will be maintained. Friends, before you ship wine check out this website for the laws pertaining to the state you are shipping the wine to. If you get the opportunity to voice your opinion to the law makers of your states, vote for the right to bootleg wine in the name of “friend-ships” everywhere. Cheers, Dillon & Karen CommentsLeave a Reply |   Psychedelic Wine Spike Dillon LaBonte
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