I generally take the conservative approach to this.  The scheme that JimmyV mentions is that you take possession in CA (thus the reason for the CA tax) and ship the wine to yourself.  There are 2 gray areas here 1) did you really take possession?  If the intermediary is a wine storage facility (e.g. 55 degrees) where you have an account, you can make a better argument than if it is only a shipper, and 2) are you really allowed to ship to yourself?  That one has been debated a lot with strong arguments on both sides.

 

The more orders a winery ships by one of these methods, the more at risk they are.  They, of course, are risking their license whereas you are mostly just risking this wine shipment.

I always assumed that it was the failure to collect taxes that made this type of transaction dicey.  So I always insist on having CA sales tax added even if the winery does not think it has to assess it.

Which license is at risk? California?  I assume so, since they must not have a license from the state where they don't ship.  I would hope that as long as CA gets their tax revenue, they wouldn't care too much about whether "possession" in this virtual age of ours means touching the bottles, versus "control" over what happens to the wine and how it gets moved from one place to another.  I know I'm preaching to the converted, but if a person moves from CA to NJ, they can have their wine put on an Allied Van Lines truck and shipped to themselves.  So I don't know why Allied can perform this service and Buffalo Shipping cannot.   

It depends on from whom Buffalo is taking its instructions.  If you, as the winery, use Buffalo as your shipping department, you might be breaking shipping laws.  But if I as the consumer take "possession" of the wine from you in CA and have complete control, authority and liability for loss or breakage of the wine, and I instruct that the wine be picked up by Buffalo, then you have done nothing wrong.  If the winery (like Pride) allows in-person pick-up, and I send my brother-in-law to Pride to pick up my wine, and Pride hands it over to him (assuming he is over 21), Pride has done nothing wrong.  Now, if I ask Buffalo to stop by and pick up my wine, what's the diff?  The answer to the situation you pose lies in the identity of the person who is using Buffalo as their agent.  If the winery uses Buffalo as its agent, there is a problem.  If the consumer uses Buffalo as its agent, there is no problem whatsoever.  As long as CA tax is collected.

 

I'm not certain that this is exactly how everyone interprets or applies the law. But it should be.  I, as a consumer, can authorize anyone I want to act as my agent for delivery as long as they are over 21.  If Buffalo has the proper licenses to ship wine interstate, then everything is perfectly legal.  I assume that they do, as they have been at it for a long time.