"I think it will be good for the region as a whole.  For example, at the moment I cannot ship wine to my Pfizer colleagues who live in New Jersey or Connecticut. It’s a felony to even cross state lines with wine in the car. I have gotten requests from people from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas, who came to Long Island for a visit, tried the wines, and then wanted to order some from my website once they get back home – in the past I had to turn these people down, but in the future I will be able to ship to them.

Also, it has been said that magazines with a nationwide distribution have been reluctant to review wines that are not readily available nationwide.  I am not sure if this is true or not, but with the new legislation, it should be possible for a New York winey to ship wine directly to the interested consumer in Chicago or California or wherever without going through a national distributor.  The large national distributors simply do not carry small winery’s wines.

I think in general, anything that encourages free trade is a good thing."

— Theresa Dilworth, co-owner and winemaker, Comtesse Therese Winery (and a corporate lawyer for Pfizer)