New Jersey’s Wine Shipping Restriction: The Issue Isn’t Gone—It’s Escalating New Jersey’s restriction on winery-to-consumer direct shipping, a winery capacity cap, continues to block consumer access to many wines that are available to other consumers across the country—and now, the issue has reached a critical moment. There is renewed urgency around efforts to fix this ... Read more

Age verification for wine shipping is the process of confirming that both the purchaser and recipient of alcohol are at least 21 years old, using a combination of online checks, data verification, and ID confirmation at delivery. What Is Age Verification for Wine Shipping? Ensuring that alcohol is sold and delivered only to individuals over ... Read more

Free the Grapes! Mission To Improve Direct-to-Consumer Wine Shipping Every year, Free the Grapes! works toward one clear goal: to augment—not replace—the three-tier system with legal, regulated direct-to-consumer wine shipping. As 2026 begins, the landscape continues to shift. Some states are moving forward. Others are digging in. And a few are making compliance more complicated ... Read more

Other States Are Moving Forward, but the Ocean State Remains Behind In an era when most of the United States has embraced direct-to-consumer (DTC) wine shipping laws, Rhode Island remains an outlier. Most states have adopted modern direct-to-consumer wine shipping laws that allow regulated remote ordering. In contrast, Rhode Island’s wine shipping law still requires ... Read more

Key takeaways related to winery direct-to-consumer shipping The Silicon Valley Bank released its annual “State of the Wine Industry” report, which looks back at DTC activity in the 2025 calendar year. The findings paint a difficult picture across the industry, but especially for the direct-to-consumer sales channel. Here are a few key takeaways that relate ... Read more

There are certain situations where the 800 lb gorilla just won’t budge. And it’s a shame, because consumers could finally enjoy real freedom of choice in their wine selections if these huge restrictions weren’t in the way. This is the case in five states across the country, in spite of all of the gains that ... Read more

LEGISLATIVE UPDATES ON DTC SHIPPING 2025 has seen quite a bit of activity on the direct shipping front. As you will remember, Arkansas, Delaware, and Mississippi all saw legislation pass, though there is still room for improvement within that legislation. Below is a look at current activities alphabetically by state:  ARKANSAS: Direct shipping law now ... Read more

Great strides have been made to open all 50 of the United States to winery-to-consumer direct shipping – and we’re almost there! But while much of the focus is on states that ban direct shipping, there is still work to be done in several other states that maintain significant restrictions, despite being “open” to direct ... Read more

Why Many Wineries Can’t Ship to Consumers In Several States Since its founding in 1998, Free the Grapes’ mission has been to not only remove bans on winery-to-consumer direct shipping, but also streamline restrictions on direct shipping in many states. Did you know that several states still carry significant restrictions that hinge on whether a ... Read more

Legislative Updates On DTC Shipping Below is a look at current activities by state, of note: ARKANSAS: DTC Shipping Law Now In Effect As of August 5, the new law allowing DTC shipping, directly to consumers, will be in effect. This is HB 1476, which established a wine direct shipping permit like those in use ... Read more