Unfortunately, to ship wine to any state, a winery is required, at a minimum, to obtain a Direct To Consumer (DTC) permit from the state that it intends to ship wine into.  Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) alcohol shipping is governed by individual state regulations, and any person or business looking to legally ship wine needs a DTC license. For most alcohol retailers, the license is covered by their off-premise wine sales licenses.  Some states are expensive while others are not.   Once you are over the hurdle of applying for a DTC permit, you will also need to register with the tax authority for the state so that you are able to pay for state and local taxes associated with each shipment.   Most states require monthly reports to the Alcohol Commission for the state informing them of your shipments the person ship to as well as the amount.  Additionally, most states require monthly reports and payments to the taxing authority and many require additional annual reports.  If you are registered to sell into all 50 states, you can probably be expecting to file over a thousand reports per month.

 At one time Nashoba was registered in 26 states and the experience cost us about $15,000 as sales did not cover the costs of permits and compliance.  Some states carry heavy administrative burdens, some less so and we did not prepare for all of the burdens associated with each state. Participating in the DTC segment of the wine market requires a strategy that we did not have previously.

For 2021-2020,  we are developing a strategy that will allow us to profitably sell wine into selected states that will not break our budget.  It concedes the need to access a few states as essential regardless of cost. Proximity may is important in to the decision making process since many states in New England are familiar with our wines. It will also be important for us to develop a marketing plan to entice customers from outside states to order from us frequently so we will have to develop Clubs in our approach.  

States That Do Not Allow us to Ship Directly to Customers

Thank you for your understanding and we look forward to serving you in the future.