Pinot Law

The Los Angeles Times covered an issue the other day that many wineries throughout the country – including in Virginia — are beginning to deal with on a more regular basis. The article is identical to a similar story covered by the New York Times in July. discusses the problem of drunks — usually in limos or tour buses — coming to wineries and generally . . . well, one winery employee sums it up here:

It’s a pervasive problem,” said Craig Root, a tasting-room consultant based in the Napa Valley town of St. Helena. “The limo crowd appears to have great demographics on the surface, but some of them tend to — and there’s no polite way to put this — they tend to just get juiced.”

Both articles are worth the read, and what many people may not realize is that wineries can be summonsed for serving a drunk. That’s certainly the case in Virginia and most other states. As a result, a lot of wineries are just saying ‘no’ to limos and tour buses. But another interesting approach raised in the article is that some of these wineries have banded together and forced the tour operators to police their customers. This seems to me to be an interesting approach, but judging from the article, it has mixed results.

Dec. 07 200, used under a Creative Commons License provided by Lord Jim.