A bit about New Mexico wine

From Appellation America, here is an article on the wine scene in New Mexico.

I had no idea that New Mexico's wine scene predated California's by ... 140 years! Damned Prohibition did it in, just as in many other states. Thankfully, local wine is on the rebound, but the interstate shipping bans remain like a festering cyst on the vinous horizon there as elsewhere across our continent.

Thanks for bringing this article to my attention. Since I've followed the NM wine industry from the very start..I can speak w/ a bit of authority on the article and the subject.
A reasonably decent article giving an overview of the NM wine industry. A few hits, a couple of misses, and then totally bombs at the end.
They missed on of NM's best wineries up in Dixon, near LaChirapada, Vivac Wnry. Assuming they were physically here in NM for researching the article, the Vivac tasting room is right there on the road in Dixon. Big oversight.
They also missed PonderosaVnyds over in Ponderosa (my backyard, sorta). One of the more interesting stories, one of the pioneers in the NM industry, and pretty good wines.
I loved the part where DaveWikham attributed to preponderance of sweet wines to the visiting Texans.
There is some very interesting history of the NM wine industry that I think would have made the article a much more interesting read that I think
they should have included.
Finally the Bomb...a 20 Kt dud: They cite the press release from Free The Grape that contained much hand-wringing, weeping & wailing, and gnashing of teeth. This original press release was sent out in Feb by FtG with absolutely no research or understanding of the NM issues from what I could tell. It describes how the NM liquor lobby was trying to cut off the direct shipping of wines to NM. From what I know, the NM distributors have been amazingly passive on the direct shipping issue. The original "reciprocity" bill that was passed over 10 yrs ago works very/very well, from my standpoint and places some (very weak) limitations on the direct shipping to NM. The bill introduced in the last legislature (SB59) did little more to the present situation that make things "legal" (vis a vis the SupremeCourt ruling). It did nothing on increasing the current restrictions. It imposed a permit system and fee on outside-NM wineries & retailers to ship to NM. It required them to collect NM state taxes and send it to NM. The fiscal analysis of the bill indicated the tax revenue/fees raised would not even pay for the costs of inforcing the new law. It was a bill that we NM consumers could have lived with, though now having to pay NM taxes on our wine (which, in theory, we must already do on all our out-of-state purchases..be it wine, LandsEnd shirts, or VictoriaSecret's pantaloons...but which is not enforced at all). The FtG press release was much ado about nothing. As mentioned, the bill died in the House Committee.
Anyway....thanks for the link, Paul.
Tom