This month marks the 20th anniversary of the seminal Granholm v. Heald case, in which the United States Supreme Court struck down protectionist alcohol shipping laws that discriminated against out-of-state wineries. Seen at the time as a harbinger of a truly national e-commerce marketplace for alcoholic beverages, Granholm continues to be treated more like a legal inconvenience than a binding precedent by lower courts.
In Granholm, numerous wineries challenged a Michigan law that allowed in-state wineries to ship directly to state residents but required out-of-state wineries to sell their products through wholesalers. Because the case was a consolidation of several legal challenges, it also involved a New York law that only permitted out-of-state wineries to engage in direct-to-consumer shipping if they had a "branch factory, office or storeroom within the state of New York."
In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court struck down both laws as a violation of the so-called "dormant Commerce Clause," which establishes the principle that state governments cannot blatantly favor in-state economic interests by discriminating against out-of-state economic actors.
