UPS denied our Wine Shipper application,
denying us (a licensed and bonded winery) to mail our product. Why? Because of the
word “cider.” They have further confused an already confused law stating: ciders
above 7% abv are no longer “hard ciders, instead, those ciders are to be
considered and taxed as “apple-wines.” (Note that ciders naturally ferment to become +\- 7% depending on the year.) Long story short: the federal government uses the word “wine”
as an umbrella term, i.e. “fruit wine,” “dandelion wine”, etc.
OK, we concede to
the wine tax, wine regulations and all the restrictions that come with it, but that’s not
enough. Now we have to stop using the
word “cider” too. I repeat: We can’t
call a cider a "cider." If we can’t
legally call the sky, “the sky,” then something is obviously wrong with the
law. But now UPS has taken it one step
further and said they won’t ship our apple-wine either, so long as it has the word
“cider” somewhere on the label! Despite
the fact that the federal TTB, the wine-label overseer, approved our wine label
with the word “cider” on it, UPS takes still a harsher stand: erase-the-word
“cider”.
It’s a coward’s
move. They don’t want to take the time
to navigate the federal blunder and so they run. Shame on them for choosing to hide, UPS is
erring on the wrong side of caution. I
can say with 100% conviction, that it hurts our small farm. Is that their intention?
