there was a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on monday outlining a court case in which wineries are being allowed to directly sell wine to retailers.

the interesting part of the article comes later, where it talks about a case being brought against the state of washington by costco, where it says that being forced to buy beer and wine from a distributor, and not from the brewery itself is against the law and is anti-competitive.

what makes this especially poingnant for north carolinians, lke me, is that there is a potential piece of legislation to raise the ABV for beer in our state, allowing more specialty and craft brews into the state. this new court case in washington may end up helping the law go through, because if big name breweries like budweiser, miller, and coors are allowed to directly sell to wal-mart, costco, and other large retail chains, and NOT have to go through a distributor/wholesaler, those wholesalers will need to find something to help make up for that lost revenue. specialty beer may be just the answer, since most smaller breweries don’t have the infrastructure to deal with thousands of individual accounts, and would probably rather deal with a wholesaler for their distribution.