The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the B-21 Wines, Inc., et. al. case makes clear that out-of-state retailers should not be shipping wine directly to N.C. consumers. The court said:
“Our analysis of North Carolina’s Retail Wine Importation Bar under the Tennessee Wine framework leads us to conclude that, although the Bar discriminates against interstate commerce, it is nevertheless justified on the legitimate nonprotectionist ground of preserving North Carolina’s three-tier system. We therefore arrive at the same conclusion reached by our colleagues in the Sixth and Eighth Circuits when they faced similar situations. See Lebamoff Enters. Inc. v. Whitmer, 956 F.3d 863, 867 (6th Cir. 2020), cert. denied, 141 S. Ct. 1049 (2021); Sarasota Wine Mkt., LLC v. Schmitt, 987 F.3d 1171, 1175, 1184 (8th Cir. 2021), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 335 (2021). At bottom, we rule that North Carolina acted within its constitutional authority — granted by Section 2 of the Twenty-first Amendment — in adopting the Retail Wine Importation Bar and prohibiting out-of-state retailers from shipping wine directly to consumers.”