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« BACK The Texas Wine Marketing Research Institute is part of Texas Tech University in Lubbock. The institute compiles statistics, releases reports, and issues updates to wineries and vineyards across the state. The location of the group is not as unusual as you might think; some of the finest grapes in Texas are grown in the area around Lubbock. A local vineyard once donated bottles of wine to a Texas Tech homecoming banquet. The bottles were placed on every table. But before they could be appreciatively swished and sniffed, the party was raided by agents of the TABC. The donation had been judged illegal, and the wine was confiscated. Under the three-tiered system mandated by law, a winery wishing to make such a contribution would have to first sell the wine to a distributor, who would in turn sell it to a retailer or a caterer. Then the winery could buy back its wine at the full retail price, and only then would be allowed to give it away. The system supposedly protects Texans from evil liquor manufacturers, ensures local control of the liquor business, and increases the state's tax revenues. But it's also effective at protecting the profits of entrenched distributors, reducing competition for existing retailers, and maintaining the status quo. Years ago, Dr. Steven Morse, then director of the Lubbock wine institute, was asked about the irony of the state's wine marketing authority being located in a dry county. Morse explained that, although Lubbock was dry, its citizens actually drank a lot of wine. Why didn't citizens just vote the county wet? "It's not that simple," Morse said. He then told a classic tale of Texas politics. The liquor retailers just across the county line would be out of business if Lubbock had its own liquor stores, he said. And so these wealthy merchants make large contributions to local politicians to see that the matter never gets put to a vote. Wet-dry elections are extremely rare in West Texas, and whenever one seems imminent, the Baptist church makes an odd alliance with the existing liquor merchants, and the vote gets quashed. Alcohol is considered a tool of the devil by the Baptist church, just as it was when prohibition was repealed. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code was written, in part, to satisfy the many opponents of prohibition's repeal. Its temperance-minded authors made sure that any inducements to drink (like giving away free samples) were illegal. This has long complicated the lives of wine sellers by limiting tastings and forcing the organizers of wine contests to buy the wines being judged. By the same logic, the code strictly limited advertising. A winery may not, for instance, erect a billboard that depicts a bottle of wine to advertise its tasting room. Under the revised code going into effect next month, the state will perform an amusing juggling act, as it attempts to provide marketing assistance to Texas wineries and simultaneously promote public temperance. The legal problems that plague the Texas wine industry are especially frustrating to many of those who work in it, because the laws all seem so pointless, petty, and easily fixed. But when it comes to liquor in Texas, common sense falls into the rabbit hole and emerges in TABC-land, where nothing is quite as it seems. Established at the repeal of prohibition in 1935 as the Liquor Control Board, the TABC has had a checkered career, according to the Handbook of Texas Online. Coke Stevenson Jr., who ran the agency from 1949 until 1968, resigned amid allegations of influence-peddling. In 1975 a TABC official was dismissed for allegedly accepting bribes from a Houston liquor store. Sherman McBeath, a former U.S. Marine who ran the agency in the 1980s, was accused of selectively enforcing the code against minorities. In 1992 the agency faced the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, a review board before which agencies justify their continued existence. Legislators from Houston and other districts related horror stories about TABC police tactics, and critics accused the beverage commission of having too cozy a relationship with the liquor industry. The comptroller's office and other powerful forces in Austin called for the agency to be disbanded. But the TABC survived the review process with little more than a slap on the wrist. NEXT »
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