Illinois wine industry pushes to change Prohibition-era distribution law. ‘We make really good wine in the state of Illinois, and we’re not allowed to self-distribute a single gallon.’

Under the current law, only wineries that produce less than 25,000 gallons a year are allowed to self-distribute their wine, with a maximum of 5,000 gallons to sell themselves to outside retailers. The proposed legislation, sponsored by Sen. Rachelle Crowe, a Democrat from suburban St. Louis, seeks to raise the production threshold to 250,000 gallons and the self-distribution limits to 50,000 gallons, enabling smaller wineries to bypass distributors and grow their own local connections.