August 2006 Archives

It appears that for a while, wineries could not advertise over the internet or engage in e-commerce, even though liquor stores can do so. Minnesota wineries could only rely on word of mouth and/or other forms of advertising to let people know of the existence of Minnesota wine. This is a bad predicament to be in since consumers are now getting used to and liking the act of buying over the internet. Litigation in Minnesota has led to victory for vintners and consumers to freely conduct their business in due course.

Check this out:
http://www.ij.org/first_amendment/mn_wine_speech/index.html

Also contains some good background on the Minnesota Wine Industry and other related information.

It is always interesting to see if you can go from amateur to expert simply by showing genuine interest in a topic.

I'm starting law school in the fall and thought it would be interesting to chart my course and perhaps see how using wine as a topic can help me apply the knowledge that I will learn.

I spent an afternoon scouring the internet for articles on wine law and politics in Minnesota and did not find too much out there - at least not all in one place. I am inviting any readers to send articles of interest my way.

It appears that there are entire semesters of classes devoted to wine law in California. But alas, Minnesota is only now a growing wine industry (we established the Three Rivers Wine Trail (www.threeriverswinetrail.com) earlier this summer) so maybe perhaps...one day we will have our own wine class in Minnesota!