Kentucky wineries worried that bill will squeeze profits

BRUCE SCHREINER
Associated Press
FRANKFORT, Ky. - Harriet Allen has spent years nurturing row after row of grapevines springing from fertile Kentucky soil once prized for producing tobacco.
Once the grapes are turned into wine, Allen sells her vintages to people visiting an 18th-century farmhouse at her Talon Winery & Vineyards in Fayette County.
There's a new and growing segment of her business that comes from direct wine sales to restaurants and liquor stores in Lexington, Louisville and northern Kentucky.
There's no middleman involved, which is the way Allen likes it.
"We're in the infancy of our development of a wine industry in Kentucky," said Allen, who bought the farm in 1998 with her husband, Charles Tackett, a former judge. "Our volumes are so small that we have to do a lot of things ourselves."
Kentucky's wineries are at risk of losing the right to distribute directly to retailers. A bill before the Kentucky General Assembly would require in-state wineries to go through wholesalers, just like other producers of beer or spirits....for more of the story