HR 5034 - Waiting on takeoff

(Written a few months back, but edited today)

I was just deplaned at Tucson International Airport from my Southwest flight. I am not alone, they emptied the entire plane because it was not safe to fly according to FAA regulations. What could it be you say? An engine problem, a fuel leak, some terrorist plot that the FBI is foiling as I type? No, the cover for the light-up plastic exit sign over one of the emergency exits is missing. A fifty cent piece of plastic has grounded a multi-million dollar airplane. They even had all the passengers looking for it on the floor. So, because a cheap piece of plastic is no doubt wedged between the seats, 180 odd people are growing grumpier by the minute. Great example of a bit of bureaucracy that sounded good to some suit in DC, yet is inane in practice.

What does this have to do with wine you may ask? Well a lot if you are a winemaker typing a blog on a cell phone. Arizona winemakers, like the rest of the nations winemakers, are subject to the inanities of the federal bureaucracy. My first example is labels. When trying to get one of our labels approved by the TTB (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau) we experienced a most peculiar round of nonsense. We submitted our label the first time and it was rejected. When we asked why, they said they do not give notes on labels. Just great, so left with no idea of what was wrong, we simply guessed. So we fixed what we thought may have offended them and resubmitted. Rejected again, this time, strangely enough, we got a list of errors: font size was incorrect for the alcohol percentage, the spacing on the alcohol warning was wrong, they did not like how we stated the origin of our grapes, etc. At least we knew what to fix. The second person was more helpful than the first to be sure. We resubmitted and wouldn't you know it, we ended up working with a third person, awesome. He rejected our language on the back of our label because it mentioned our family vineyard and since we were buying grapes from neighbors it was apparently misleading to even mention our vineyard. Something that neither of the previous TTB agents had mentioned. So we sent it back. We finally got approval after we had already bottled(we couldn't wait any longer).

Now imagine that every state was allowed to regulate in this way. If you landed in Louisiana and they noticed the plane did not have exit sign written in creole you too would be grounded for hours on end while that found a 50 cent piece a plastic to glue on there(No offense to the French speakers among you). Or how about not being able to buy the wine you want because the skull and cross bones required by some puritanical legislator is not sufficiently intimidating enough? These are gross exaggerations, but that is how points are often made.

If HR 5034 passes you will see far more creativity than this in the new liquor laws that will crop up all over the country. Laws that would normally be struck down by courts citing the commerce clause. But, what is this? HR 5034 exempts states from impeding interstate commerce as long as it pertains to alcoholic beverages. Hmm, let me see, I seem to recall that the dormant commerce clause is like the federal governments ace in the hole when it comes to domestic policy. It is what struck down the Jim Crow Laws and advanced de-segregation across the country. Why would they give up that power? Money. I am not saying they are being bought, not out loud anyway. It is to protect the money being made by the beer wholesalers of America. The beer wholesalers of America wrote this spiffy little piece of "legislation" all while keeping the interests of the American people at heart. They wrote it to promote temperance in America and stop underage drinking.

Lets get this straight, they want to make sure people drink less. (Pause for dramatic effect) Okay, and General Motors wants people to drive less. They want to stop underage drinking, a noble cause to be sure. And how will they do this. By stopping the evil wineries from shipping directly to your home. Huh? I seem to recall when I was a rambunctious youth the first place my friends went to get boozes was the online sign up forms for a wine club. They would pay $20 plus tax and shipping and they might even get it by next weekend. Only to be carded by the the website and the UPS guy. Darn. No, underage drinkers usually just have an of-age-friend buy for them, or find a liquor store with shaky morals.

This isn't about underage drinking or temperance, or even states rights. It is making sure that their monopolies are safe. If we are able to mail you a bottle of wine then you aren't buying it from a store, and the store isn't buying it from a distributor.

When our three tiered system was enacted it was supposed to be to keep the gangsters out. I think it was to keep them in. What does a distributor own? Trucks. Why can't a producer own trucks? They are a distribution method and for a long time you were required to use them. What if you were required to ride the bus to work? Even if you own your own car? That would be fun. That is the effect of HR 5034, and that is my rant.

A Day at the Tasting Room

A tasting room is a place to sample wine, not a place to do shots of it. This is my pet peeve about running a tasting room. Many people don't taste our Chardonnay because before they can even smell aroma one, it is in their stomach. I avoid correcting them, because that means they are doing something wrong. The experience is not for my benefit, but for the person tasting. So I boast about the fragrance of the next wine and talk about how if you hold it in their mouth it really shows character. After that they tend to sniff and swish with the best of them.

You see, when people walk into my tasting room they either announce that they have never done a wine tasting before or they tell me they are shocked there is such a thing as Arizona wine. That is what we get: adventurous newbies and the curiously incredulous. So the goal of a tasting then becomes to initiate and to convert.

It is a lot like a club. "Have you tried Arizona wine?" If the answer is yes, you are usually barraged with question of where, when, what, how and oddly enough why. If the answer is no, most people who have tried a few Arizona wines will give directions, recommendations, websites, and offers to car pool. Once initiated you find that you could conceivably spend almost every weekend for the rest of you natural life with fellow Arizona wine fanatics. There is always an Arizona wine event going on. But once you become a zombie, vampire, or some other form of undead you are cut off.

While still human a tasting room can be a scary place for the uninitiated. If someone comes in with a group of friends who are self proclaimed connoisseurs, how is she to feel when the only descriptor she can come up with is "good"? That is one of the reasons I like Arizona wine. There is a comfortable lack of pretension. We don't have the baggage of estates that can be traced back to the Roman Empire, or brands crafted by marketing mavens, or even storied dynasties(check back in 60 years). We just have good wine. I say good because great wine, by popular and critical definition, needs about an inch of dust and a name that most of us would not bother trying to pronounce.

Most of the people who taste here end up talking about life more than wine. I learn about where the kids go to school, their family history, how their grandfather used to make wine in the basement(an extremely common conversation), and the personal details of ones life that no other salesman ever hears. That is because I am not selling them, I am just talking to them while they enjoy my wine. A friend once told me a tired saying that the best souvenir from a winery is a bottle of wine. Perhaps the more wine they buy, the more they want to remember their visit.

Cheers.