Back in January of 2003 there was a friendly wager placed between then California Governor Gray Davis and Florida Governor Jeb Bush (pictured to the left) over the outcome of Superbowl XXXVII, a battle between the country’s top two football teams – the Oakland Raiders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  Of course, in that duel, the Raiders were spanked by the Bucs by a lopsided score of 48 – 21.

One of the items put up in that wager by Davis was a case of Groth Napa Valley Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (some great wine, made by a great vintner and great guy Dennis Groth).  However, it was made public shortly after the defeat of the Raiders that because of some draconian laws put in place by the Florida legislature long, long ago, it was actually a felony to directly ship wine into the Sunshine State.  You see, the distributor lobby in that state actually was able, once upon a time, to pass legislation requiring that wine shipments into Florida must go through a middleman – namely them, the distributors.  It was a government-mandated monopoly for the liquor distributors, and an affront to all wine lovers in Florida, who were legally prohibited from order wine online, or even joining one of those wine clubs at a California winery. 

Upon the revelation of this challenging situation, Governor Davis offered to bring two of the twelve bottles to Governor Bush at their next Association of Governors conference, which he did.  Apparently Florida also restricted the amount of wine an individual consumer could carry back into the state to just two bottles!

The great news is that in the intervening years, there was a case taken all of the way to the United States Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of these direct-shipping-of-wine bans that existed in so many states.  In the end, the Court struck down these laws, arguing that because in-state wineries could ship to consumers in their states that it was violative of the constitution to prohibit out of state wineries from being able to do the same.  (The Free the Grapes logo is pictured above to the right – FTG is the official group formed to defend the right of Americans to have wine shipped directly to their homes or businesses.)

This ruling has caused a scramble across the country as legislators in those states that had banned direct-shipping have been working hard, with heavy lobbying (can you say “spread the cash”) by Southern Wine and Spirits and the other distributor giants, to come up with new ways to regulate wine shipping into the states where they wield a lot of influence.  This takes us back to Florida and a new wager just won by Governor Bush…

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Governor Jeb Bush made their own friendly wager on the outcome of this year’s NCAA Basketball Finals, where the Florida Gators went head-to-head against the UCLA Bruins.  Another lopsided victory was clinched by the Florida team, with the Gators outscoring the Bruins 73 – 57.  Once again, one of the many items put up by our California Governor (besides avocados, asparagus, peaches, cheese, and other assorted produce) was ‘a case of fine California wine.’

The good news is that right now, it looks like Governor Schwarzenegger will be able to make good on the wager of wine – since right now, Florida’s direct-shipping ban which had been stricken by the Supreme Court has yet to be replaced with any new regulation.  But that will not last long.  Southern Wine and Spirits is lobbying hard now (I had a chance to talk directly with their Florida lobbyist in person not too long ago) to pass a new law through the legislature that would place new restrictions on direct-shipping.  Specifically, they want to place a cap on the size of winery (based on volume of wine produced) that can directly ship to consumers.  The proposed prohibition would be on any wineries that produce more than 250,000 gallons (or roughly 100,000 cases) of wine per year. Once again the wines produced by these major wineries would be off limits for Florida consumers who want to buy their wines directly!  Great wine labels such as Robert Mondavi, Cakebread, Ravenswood, Franciscan, Sebastiani & Sons, Bonny Doon, Rodney Strong and so many other great makers of wine will be ‘off limits’ to directly ship to Florida consumers.

My sources tell me that Schwarzenegger is likely to honor this bet with a case of fine Cakebread wine – thus making the point that this case would not be able to be sent to Bush if he signs this proposed legislation into state law in the coming months.

So, it would appear that Jeb Bush is going to receive a case of great Napa wine very soon.  Let’s hope that as he enjoys getting it, that he decides that all Floridians should be able to enjoy opening their own case of wine shipped straight from the Golden State, no matter which winery sends it along.  Perhaps the NCAA victory for the Gators can be a win-win for all Floridians if by winning this bet and enjoying some nice California wine, Governor Bush vetoes any legislation that restricts the freedom his constituents to order that same wine directly shipped to their own homes.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 5th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.