By federal law, the wine industry is split into the Moe, Larry and Curly three-tier system.
You've got to have an importer, distributor and then a retailer or restaurant owner in each of the 50 states. Colorado actually requires four tiers.
The truth though is that the wine trade is now being dominated by enormous companies that dominate every aspect of the trade. Their interest is mass volume and homogenization.
Those of us who are interested in real wines that come from real work in real earth need to get past the three tier system ideology and realize that anyone in the trade interested in good wine has more common interest with us than a fellow Moe, Larry or Curly.
The lines are beginning to blur. Our company is an importer and distributor and who knows if we won't also be a retailer at some time in the future.
What shocks me is when progressive people in the wine trade want to fixate on the old divisions and keep doing business in the same old way.
Let's get everyone who likes great wine together and work together to get great wine out in the market. That's right, be it a distributor, retailer, importer, restaurant, writer or blogger.
We have nothing to lose but our supply chains!
Easier said than done
Look how long it took for nationwide prohibition to actually take full effect: 33 years! Mississippi was "dry" until 1966.
The entrenchment of the three-tier system is terrible, but I could only envision seeing it change in a few isolated areas. Once government is entrenched in some area, it's darned difficult to get it out. Just look at Montgomery County, Maryland, the last control county in the U.S.A. Their liquor stores make so much revenue for the county (which goes toward their excellent public school system) that no politician has ever seriously managed to make a change in how it operates.
The situation is regrettable, but I don't see any way out of it. Too many powerful forces aligned against it.