Amazon likely to scrap wine sales program

 Sorry wine snobs, whether you're hunting for Opus One or Ornellaia, mega-retailer Amazon.com is extremely unlikely to be able to help you get your vino fix.

After two long years of working on an online wine sales program, the company is now said to be putting those plans on indefinite hold. In a communication with its partner wineries, according to WineBusiness.com, the company said it would not resume shipping wine to customers and would no longer be ordering inventory from bottlers.

Amazon's beta website wine.amazon.com remains open only to users with an account and password, presumably winery partners.

Why did the plan not pan out? Blame the incredibly complicated rules governing interstate wine shipping in the country. Every state has its own unique set of laws involving whether wine and other spirits can be shipped directly to consumers and from where those shipments can originate. Many states ban wine shipments to individual consumers altogether, while some have a completely open policy on the matter. Then there's the issue of ensuring that only adults order wine -- and receive it when the package arrives.

The logistical nightmare has stymied many a company attempting to crack the mail-order wine business (even eBay had to get out of the game several years ago, though it has since tiptoed back into allowing limited wine sales on the site if sellers have special approval), though a handful of companies appear to be thriving on online wine sales.

Why Amazon couldn't get its arms around the issue may have to remain a mystery -- though WineBusiness suggests that the issue of third-party resellers on the site, which are welcome to sell just about any product through Amazon and can even undercut Amazon's own pricing, may have played a factor. The company has also encountered problems with at least one of its operations partners, which abruptly stopped delivering orders this summer.