As I reported last week, the President’s budget proposal includes a 14% boost for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to support the Farm Bill plus additional research. How wise. A few recent developments have reminded me of how research pays off in so many ways, even though it typically takes time to do … Read more
Thanks to the Aloha State, we have direct interstate wine shipping in America today. If you go back almost 40 years, to 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bacchus decision ruled that giving Hawaiian pineapple wine favorable treatment in terms of excise taxes would be unfair discrimination under the Commerce Clause. That same year, when wine … Read more
Biden Budget and Farm Bill The Biden Administration unveiled its 2024 Budget proposal which, like all of them in any year, is basically DOA in Congress but also a reflection of priorities. In this case, agriculture got a nice boost, up 14% to $30.1 billion for the United States Department of Agriculture to support increased … Read more
Wine is produced and consumed in all 50 states, and every single one is wonderfully unique… Georgia has a long history of wine going back to the 19th Century, and was even the sixth largest wine-producing state in 1900. But it was also among the first to institute Prohibition (in 1907), which devastated the industry … Read more
Farm Bill: Here We Go. The most consequential piece of legislation for the grape and wine industry is now on its way, and WineAmerica has already begun weighing in. Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Ranking Member John Boozman (R-AR) have officially invited comments from anyone interested in this bill, which sets agricultural … Read more