In another victory for US wine producers, a federal court has ruled that a Texan law banning direct shipments of wine to consumers by out-of-state wineries is unconstitutional.
The ruling was issued on Thursday at US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans. It is the first time a federal appellate court has struck down a state wine-shipping ban and backed an injunction against enforcing it.
The Court agreed with an earlier ruling by a lower court that parts of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code violated the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution.
“This is not even a close call,” the court said.
It said that the ban on out-of-state wineries shipping directly to the state’s consumers amounted to “parochial economic discrimination” because Texas wineries could still sell and ship wine directly to Texan consumers.
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By GlobalData“The purpose of the state scheme is economic discrimination against out-of-state interests or, depending on one’s point of view, economic protectionism of in-state competitors,” the court said.
