Saturday, January 26, 2008

 
Pinnacle Ridge Winery is in Greenwich Township, only about six miles from where I live, but I've never tried its product. My own taste runs more to Chilean or Australian Merlot. Pennsylvania has in recent years bowed to pressure to reduce regulation of alcohol to allow wineries to sell their product direct to the public and to allow customers to taste the wine on premises. Otherwise, we are mostly stuck in the Depression era quagmire of socialized alcohol sales. This system of limited state-run retail outlets for wine and liquor persists through an unholy alliance of unionized state employees in the stores protecting their jobs and socially conservative church leaders who would rather it wasn't sold at all. The latter are right about one thing, if you want to make something widely available, don't entrust it to the government. As Jefferson once wrote, "If we look to the government to tell us when to plant and when to reap, we will soon want for bread." As succinct an indictment of our farm policy as I have ever seen and written long before that policy began.
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