Amazon scraps plans for wine delivery

You won’t be getting happy-faced cardboard boxes filled with cases of wine any time soon, because apparently Amazon.com has decided to end its dalliance with wine delivery. After launching a trial program in March 2008, the online retailer has shelved AmazonWine. 

The news sent wine blogs into a tizzy about how the promise of widespread access to small-scale wineries never materialized. Vinography contends that financial difficulties at Amazon’s potential fulfillment partner, New Vine Logistics, hurt prospects for a wide roll-out. Dr. Vino suggests that is was the two-punch combination of restrictive shipping regulations and a flagging economy that doomed the Amazon’s foray into wine sales:

The intractable logjam was the interstate shipping laws that govern interstate wine shipping…. Given the economics of shipping wine, the company may have been targeting higher-priced bottles. In that regard, the economic backdrop didn’t help the plan as high-end wine sales have softened in the past year.