Wholesaler Efforts to Curb Florida Direct-to-Consumer Wine Shipping Fail

The Florida Legislature has concluded its regular business for the year without making any changes to the direct to consumer shipping environment. After another bruising battle with the distributors over their attempts to limit direct shipping to wineries producing or selling less than 250K gallons, all efforts to pass free standing legislation, or amend various bills to add their favored limitations, were defeated. The status quo continues for another year. As a result, all US wineries may continue to ship to FL consumers. The wineries must file a report and pay the state excise taxes, while FL consumers are responsible for the payment of the sales/use tax.