Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Waiting for the Court

I had been hoping that yesterday would see the wine-shipping case among those the Supreme Court handed down, but no such luck. Even when the decision comes down, and even if it is on the right side, nothing much will improve in Bloomington immediately. The most the Court is likely to do is to say that in-state wineries and out-of-state wineries have to have equal shipping rights – which will then call on the Indiana legislature either to stop Oliver from shipping or allow Screaming Eagle to. It is true, however, that a legislative victory for the anti-competition forces will not be automatic. Indiana winemakers are part of the farm community and voting to narrow markets for in-state farms may give legislators pause. What I really want is not to receive wines direct from California wineries, even though that’s a good start. I want to be able to buy wine from Sam’s and Convito Italiano and John Hart in Chicago and have it safely shipped to me. In return, I’d be happy to pay taxes for legal access to a full range of smaller producers, hard-to-find new releases and futures, and auctions of older wines. Speaking of auctions, John Hart has now become a major world player, forming a new firm, Hart Davis Hart, with former auction managers from Christie’s and Sotheby’s. There’s nothing illegal about an Indiana resident buying at auction in Chicago. It’s getting the wine home that may be the legal problem. Under one reading of this state’s law, you can only bring it home one bottle at a time. I wonder about this: suppose I pull my station wagon up to the Indiana state line on the Illinois side. Then I step out, and one at a time, bring my bottles over the line, then drive my car across the line too, load it up, and tool on home. Seems legal to me (?) but I suppose the hazards of actually doing this on the Tollway are too numerous to contemplate. Anyway, there’s a major auction at Hart Davis Hart on May 7. Despite the sentence underneath this blog’s title, how could I resist pointing out that you could probably pick up a half-dozen bottles of 1995 Le Pin for $4000. (So cheap because it’s not a stand-out year.) If you get the catalog, you’ll see some stuff for mere mortals as well – the real deal, though, is the pre-auction tasting. For $65 you can taste a lot of the gems for sale – the 1970 Lafite, 1982 Mouton, 1976 Echezeaux, great Californians.... Or you can just bid on the Internet, which I have done before with great ease (Julia has suggested it might not be prudent for me to actually be there, sample some really great wine, and then stroll into the auction room with a bidding paddle. I think she’s right.) Locally, there are a couple of good tasting opportunities too. Tomorrow, April 21, you can taste some Australians from five to seven in the back room of the Uptown. These are good but not great wines, mostly not to my taste but perhaps to yours. Every Saturday afternoon, Big Red conducts an informal tasting at the front of the remodeled store. Patrick promises some unusually interesting things this week.

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