MONTGOMERY, Ala (AP) – Alabamians might soon be able to have a bottle of cabernet or chardonnay delivered in the mail – as a wine shipment bill, debated for years in the Alabama Legislature, obtained final passage.
The Alabama Senate on Thursday voted 27-0 for the bill by Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, and the House of Representatives voted 88-5 to accept Senate changes to the bill. It now goes to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey for her signature.
The bill would allow wineries to obtain a direct wine shipper license from the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to ship limited quantities of wine directly to Alabama residents 21 and older. Retailers could not ship to residents.
Alabama for years stood out as a state where alcohol could not be shipped through the mail. Collins said she began working on the legislation years ago after discovering the issue when she tried to send a present to her mother.
“I wanted to send a Mothers’ Day Basket to my mother and at the disclosure at the bottom said everywhere but Alabama. I was like, ‘What? We can’t do that?'” Collins recalled. “Working with lots of interested parties, we may have maybe made that happen,” Collins said.