S Carolina quirky liquor laws give sour grapes to wine giant

S Carolina quirky liquor laws give sour grapes to wine giant

SeattlePI.com

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The biggest winemaker in the U.S. wants to open an East Coast bottling and distribution center in South Carolina, investing $400 million and hiring up to 500 people. But its request for open tasting rooms where the public can sample wines has some lawmakers and small businesses crying sour grapes.

E & J Gallo Winery's call for tasting rooms in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars is seen as a prized catch for Chester County, one of the poorest areas of South Carolina. The California winemaker even likens its plan to the at first modest mid-1990s investment by BMW in South Carolina — now one of the state’s biggest manufacturing success stories with 11,000 employees.

But the public tasting rooms request has caused the measure to grind slowly through the Legislature in a state where quirky alcohol laws protect small retailers, harkening back to the days of saloons and booze only in private clubs and bartenders making drinks with minibottles typically found on airplanes..

A bill allowing the tasting rooms passed barely before a deadline earlier this month, and a House subcommittee gave its OK on Thursday, a critical step with just nine legislative days remaining in the 2021 session.

Gallo picked South Carolina over Georgia and North Carolina for its East Coast operations, a strategic move to cut costs since nearly two-thirds of its customers live east of the Mississippi River, said Ron Donoho, a vice president for the winemaker.

He said the upscale rooms likely would be in tourist areas and allow a group of 10 or so people to gather for about an hour and taste a number of different wines in thimble-full amounts. After the tasting, each person could buy up to six bottles of wine.

“Many consumers will worry about making the wrong choice so we’ve learned over...

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