New York and Michigan wine connoisseurs will be ecstatic to hear about today's Supreme Court news. In Granholm v. Heald, the Supreme Court of the United States invalidated two state laws that regulate the sale of wine from out-of-state wineries to in-state consumers. Both New York and Michigan's regulations were found to discriminate against interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause, and that discrimination is neither authorized nor permitted by Section 2 of the Twenty-first Amendment, which allows a state to establish its own liquor control laws.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who delivered the Majority opinion stated, "The details and mechanics of the two regulatory schemes differ, but the object and effect of the laws are the same: to allow in-state wineries to sell wine directly to consumers in that State but to prohibit out-of-state wineries from doing so, or, at the least, to make direct sales impractical from an economic standpoint."

Docketed on December 7, 2004, Granholm v. Heald consolidated an appeal of decisions in the Courts of Appeal for the Sixth and Second Circuits. The Court affirmed the Sixth's ruling in Heald v. Engler, and reversed the Second Circuit in Swedenberg v. Kelly, which held that New York's prohibition of the direct sale and shipment of wine from unlicensed wineries to New York consumers lies within the 21st Amendment and thus is exempted from the normal operation of the Commerce Clause.

One consumer-centric outcome is that wine drinkers in New York and Michigan can now order wine directly from any California winery! So go ahead, folks, order up a case of Rutherford Merlot and rent Sideways.