Scott Osborn, the president of the New York Wine Industry Association and owner of Fox Run Vineyards in Penn Yan, writes in the Times Union about the need for the State Senate and Assembly to take action and allow the sale of wine in grocery stores.

“With the state Senate failing to vote on a revenue bill, and with budget negotiations at a standstill, it’s time for the Legislature to approve wine sales in grocery stores.

This common sense, popular proposal would create thousands of new jobs. It would bring $300 million in revenue at a time when the state is desperately looking for funds — without raising a single tax on a single New Yorker.

It’s pretty easy to see why nearly six in 10 New Yorkers of all political stripes, upstate and down, young and old, support selling wine in grocery stores, according to Siena Research Institute polls. In tough economic times, the new revenue means a lot for working New Yorkers, but the benefits don’t stop there.

For New York’s wine industry, there will be tremendous benefits. While New York usually ranks in the top four states by various wine industry measures, including the acreage of our vineyards, it is stuck at 11th in wine sales, according to a study by Wine & Vines, a leading industry trade magazine.

Many of the states ahead of New York in sales don’t produce the same amount of wine or grapes as New York does. But, according to the magazine “New York comes in at No. 11, probably because of the state’s unusually restrictive regulations, which prohibit wine sales in supermarkets.” It’s clear that New York’s Prohibition-era laws are slowly strangling our vineyards.”

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