Martha Coakley moves to block out-of-state wine shippers

There’s another roadblock for Bay Staters hoping to get wine delivered to their homes from large out-of-state producers.

The state Attorney General is appealing a December court judgment that opened the doors for the wineries to ship their products directly to Massachusetts consumers.

The decision by U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel found unconstitutional a Massachusetts law that limits the direct-to-consumer sales to wineries that produce less than 30,000 gallons of wine a year and haven’t used a wholesaler in the last six months.

Family Winemakers filed the lawsuit against the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission in 2006. The California trade group contended the state law discriminated against wineries based on their production size. It argued that the 2006 law, former Gov. Mitt Romney’s 2005 veto of which was overridden by the state Legislature, was written to protect Massachusetts wholesale distributors and in-state wineries, all of which produce less than 30,000 gallons a year.

In her decision, Zobel said the law has a “discriminatory effect” on interstate commerce, because it prevents direct shipment of 98 percent of out-of-state wine to Bay Staters while permitting all Massachusetts wineries to sell directly to consumers, retailers and wholesalers.

In November, Zobel asked Family Winemakers and the ABCC to file a proposed joint judgment outlining what would be permitted going forward, but the two sides failed to reach agreement.

Family Winemakers had hoped that the attorney general, who is representing the ABCC in court proceedings, would let it work with the Legislature on an “even-handed” permitting bill to regulate all out-of-state wineries.

“Now that (the law) has been ruled unconstitutional, Massachusetts citizens should wonder why their taxes will go to defend this anti-consumer statute whose sole purpose appears to be to maintain a state-sanctioned monopoly in wine distribution,” Jeremy Benson, executive director of Free the Grapes, which describes itself as a national coalition of thousands of wineries and 300,000 wine lovers, said in a statement.