Friends of the Pod Series -- Ep 437: Tom Wark on the history of US alcohol law, recent threats to wine shipping & how Prohibition altered cultural views of wine

Tom Wark is a wine writer, wine public relations company owner (Wark Communications), and our trusted resource for figuring out what is going on with the US wine industry and how it affects us, as wine drinkers. In his role as the executive director of the National Association of Wine Retailers, he manages and helps direct lobbying, litigation, and membership strategy and management for the retailers in the US and in that role has really helped dissect and expose some of the logistical and really cultural issues around wine in the US. He is the author of “Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog”.

Photo: Tom Wark. Source: "Fermentation Blog"

In this show we discuss a variety of topics, including the recent threat to US interstate wine shipping from the Uniform Law Commission. The bulk of our conversation revolves around the historical legacy of alcohol Prohibition in the US and the damage it caused to the way alcohol is sold, marketing and viewed in the United States.

Our main topics for the show:

• The latest news from the Uniform Law Commission, a body of lawyers from all 50 states who try to create laws that states can adopt and adapt based on common principles. We discuss the misguided nature of their proposals, and how it could potentially affect wine shipping in the United States
• The history of Prohibition in the United States – how it came about based on the events and culture of the 1910s and how, during the repeal, systems were set up that are now outdated but have enormous ripple effects in how wine is sold, distributed, and ultimately viewed in the US

The Crusaders were a group that fought to repeal Prohibition in the 1930s. Photo: Smithsonian Institute

• We touch on the active temperance movement of today and why the temperance lobby has a big problem fighting against wine, in particular. We mention marijuana as well, and the coming reckoning for that new industry. Here is the Washington Post article we reference: “From Dry January to Fake Cocktails, Inside the New Temperance Movement”

• Tom tells us what the US market would look like without a three-tier distribution system (Hint: pretty awesome) and the multitude of choices it would open up for producers and retailers.

I highly recommend that you subscribe to Tom’s very well-written blog, which is full of excellent and novel thinking. Click here to sign up.

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