Tennessee Fair Wine Laws

CONTACT LEGISLATION

Contact legislative sponsors with your support. We are currently looking for legislative sponsors for a comprehensive Tennessee Fair Wine Law/Amendment.

Contact your legislators
Legislators pay the most attention to their own constituents. To identify your senator and representatives you can:

Look on the back of your voter registration card to find your state House and state Senate districts. Members of the legislature are listed by district at www.legislature.state.tn.us. Search under "Senate" or "House."
Go to www.votesmart.org. By entering your nine-digit ZIP code, you can find your local elected officials.

When expressing support, be sure to do so in a courteous and professional manner.

Contact other legislators
Two committees - one in the Senate and one in the House - are critical to the success of the legislation. These are the committees in which decide whether to refer a bill about any changes to the alcohol laws on to a vote or to bury it in a study committee. We encourage you to contact members of the committees and voice your support.

The list below will change after January 2013 when the new committee members are announced.

	House	Senate
Committee	State and Local Government Committee	State & Local Government
Subcommittee	Local Government Subcommittee
Members	Larry Miller, Chair Eric Swafford, Vice-Chair Ulysses Jones Bob Ramsey Curry Todd Ben West	Bill Ketron, Chair Lowe Finney, Vice-Chair Joe Haynes, Secretary Tim Burchett Mike Faulk Thelma Harper Mark Norris Jim Tracy Ken Yager

Suggested e-mail or letter
We recommend that you write personal letters and e-mails to legislators. Form letters do not have the impact of personal communications. Make sure that any communications include your first name, last name, and address.

Here are some suggested elements to include:

Consumers should be allowed to purchase wine from the interstate market, pay the appropriate Tennessee state taxes and have the wine shipped to their home in Tennessee by common carriers such as UPS, Federal Express, DHL or even the U.S. Postal Service.
Retail food stores should have the choice of selling wine if their customers want it and apply the same Responsible Vendor Law standards to wine sales that they do to beer sales.
Wine Retailers in Tennessee should be able to sell food and other products in their stores, have in-store wine tastings, own more than one store and be able to order wine for consumers directly from out-of-state licensed retailers, and wholesalers.
In order for our state to support Tennessee Farm Wineries, the wineries should be allowed to sell directly to local restaurants and retail stores in their area. They should be allowed to charge for wine tastings at their winery and part of the excise taxes they pay on their wine production should be used to support a state farm wine advisory board that helps the wineries to promote and market their products.

If you don't feel comfortable writing a personal letter, you can use the following content to help you get started.

The Hon. (Legislator name),
I am writing asking you to support a bill that helps consumers have access to the interstate wine market and to support more competitive prices for wine purchased in the state of Tennessee.

Best Regards,

Your Name and Address