Farmers markets bring a cornucopia of the state?s produce to Maryland?s tables in spring and summer.
Besides being a great way to ensure you eat enough vegetables, they offer an inexpensive way for Maryland?s farmers to showcase their wares and build customers for their produce, cheeses and breads, among other products. But some farmers ? wine makers ? can?t sell their products at them.
The General Assembly won?t let them.
A law proposed last year in the General Assembly would have opened farmers markets to wineries but died in committee.
The failure of that law to pass and a host of restrictive wine laws mean higher prices and fewer wine options for state consumers. They also mean fewer tax dollars for a state facing a $1.5 billion budget black hole.
The industry is growing, but remains tiny and will stay that way without structural changes to the state?s laws. Last year sales at Maryland?s 26 wineries were $10.6 million, up from $8.9 million in 2005, according to the Maryland Wineries Association.
Except for a couple of exceptions, under Maryland law wineries must sell to wholesalers, who then sell to retailers and restaurants, raising the price of a bottle of wine at every step in the process. Maryland wineries can?t ship wine to state residents and are limited to showing their wares at 12 events throughout the state per year with no more than three in one jurisdiction. Consumers can?t order wine from out of state and could be arrested for bringing more than two bottles across state lines.
What message does that send: When you go to France, fly into Pennsylvania or Washington on the way home and hide wine in your luggage?
As Rob Deford, president of Boordy Vineyards, told The Examiner, “We?re so far from an open market it?s ludicrous.” Other states aren?t so backward. Pennsylvania, Virginia and New Jersey are among those states allowing vintners to ship wine and host unlimited events.
It?s time to end rules whose origins hearken to prohibition-era times.
Nothing is standing in legislators? way. A 2005 Supreme Court decision ruled that state laws cannot discriminate against out-of-state wineries. Insteadof discriminating against both in-state and out-of-state wineries, members of the General Assembly should vote to give consumers more choices, wineries a fair shot at marketing themselves in state and out and the state treasury more dollars.
Write to your representative and ask him or her to abolish archaic wine regulations. That?s something we can all toast.
