There's a corked wine being served in Congress that I feel compelled to bring to your attention. Thank you to Mike Officer from Carlisle Vineyards for bringing this to my attention and allowing me to reproduce his words. Do you value your right to purchase wine directly from wineries and have it shipped to your home or place of work? Do you value your rights as a consumer? And do you value State's rights? If you take no action, it is very likely that our Congress will back up and drive off with your rights - rather than having your wine delivered to your door.

In what has been described as the most onerous piece of consumer wine legislation since the 18th Amendment (remember Prohibition?), HR 5034, written by the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA), could effectively take those rights away from you. The bill is currently in the House Judiciary committee, chaired by Representative John Conyers of Michigan. Not surprisingly, the NBWA has been one of John Conyers’ top five contributors in the last two election cycles. The NBWA has also contributed heavily to two of the four sponsors of HR 5034, Representatives Howard Coble of North Carolina and Jason Chaffetz of Utah. (The other two sponsors are Representatives Mike Quigley of Illinois and Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts. It's hard to imagine that such an egregious piece of legislation, designed simply to protect the profits of big distributors, could pass but the threat is real. Please, if you enjoy receiving wines directly from wineries, we urge you to contact your Representative and encourage them to oppose HR 5034. Freethegrapes.org has a convenient pre-written letter/tool to e-mail or fax your Representative. To access it, please click here: http://www.capwiz.com/freegrapes/issues/alert/?alertid=14948676 . Alternatively, you can click here <https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml to look up your Representative to e-mail directly. Finally, if you'd like further details on HR 5034, click here: http://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show?id=42526 for a recent story by the Wine Spectator.

Don't let a few greedy wholesaler's take away your rights - and don't let the greedy legislators who count on their contributions to stay in power change the status quo which was fought for over many years. We count on the ability to obtain wines which we may not be able to obtain locally direct from the wineries. Let's fight to keep those rights.