Give me your wine, your thirsty, your wine lovers yearning to breathe free…
At the end of the month, New York is going to open its borders allowing wine lovers in the state to receive direct shipments. This is truely amazing for those who live in Manhattan and have to pay close to top retail prices for our favorite wine bottles. But what does this really mean for New Yorkers?
New Yorkers can order bottles directly from wineries… but wineries charge pretty close to retail and then you have to pay shipping. It’s great for those hard to get bottles, but on the whole, it’s not so awesome that we’ve had a law in place preventing it for 70 years.
Wine Clubs are now available to New Yorkers. This is huge for a lot of wine aficionados who are interested in collecting their favorite wineries’ rare wines. Again though, these bottles don’t come at a discount and the shipping can be pretty steep.
New Yorkers will probably have the opportunity to order from cheaper retailers outside of the state, such as Wine.com, Sams Wines in Chicago, or even The Wine Buyer over in NJ. So you save money on the cost of the bottle, but then comes the shipping costs to wipe out the savings.
As good as this new law seems for New York, I wonder how many people are going to take advantage of it. Unless you are willing to pay above and beyond the retail price for those hard to find wines, you have to wonder what impact this is going to make on the NY wine market.