House Bill 1061

Chair's Name: Roger Williams

Committee: Regulated Industries

House Sponsor: Ron Stephens

This bill makes changes to the laws governing the shipment of wine. The Rules Committee substitute begins by defining “winery” for the purposes of this section as maker or producer of wine who holds a valid federal basic wine manufacturing permit. Shippers which are also wineries may be authorized to make direct shipments of wine to consumers in this state and may be issued special order shipping licenses, without being subject to certain other statutory requirements. The license holder will be limited to 12 standard cases per consumer or address per year. 

The shipper is required to verify the age of the person placing the order and the carrier delivering the order will be responsible to obtain the signature of someone 21 or older as condition of delivery. If any of these requirements are not strictly complied with, the license will be revoked and will not be reissued for five years. The license holder also must agree to collect and pay applicable Georgia sales tax on each sale shipped to Georgia consumers.

This Rules Committee Substitute comes to the Floor under the Modified Structured Rule.

Chairman Williams’ Opinion of the legislation:

The purpose of this bill is to provide small wineries with a mechanism to distribute their wine and to enable the Georgia consumers to have the wine not carried by the retailers shipped to them directly from the wineries.