From the Front Lines of the Maryland Wine Shipping Debacle
Tom Wark over at Fermentation posted his summation of testifying in front of the Maryland Delegates on Friday. Good read, and Tom says a lot of things that I’m too chicken tactful to say here.
The situation is downright glum.
When all the yelling was done not getting started, the hearing ended, the committee chair thanked everyone for their input and announced the bill was unlikely to pass this year. There was no straw vote among committee members. There was no real vote of committee members. There was merely an announcement that the SUB-committee of the Economic Matters Committee of the Maryland House of Delegates would review the bill next.
The bill is unlikely to pass because the chairman doesn’t want it to be brought to a vote, not because it wouldn’t pass a vote if brought to the floor.
There was a also a nice nugget which re-enforced my point that people don’t understand why wine people want this passed.
This forced me to explain my own proclivity for Austrian Riesling, how I can’t find much of it in Sonoma, how I buy it on-line, yet how I often patronize local grocery stores as well as wine stores to procure other wines.
“Well, I think you must like wine more than most people,” [the delegate] replied.
