It is legal in California to offer cash discounts on wine, either at the time of sale, or by rebate after the sale. And because wine is so much a part of food and dining, some wineries had started doing clever promotions that emphasized foods and companion products that go with wines. Sounds like a bureaucracy trying to find enough things to enforce to sustain itself and justify even bigger budgets. The other dumb law they've elected to enforce regards the folks who sell wine. Wholesalers can sample wine to retailers to make a sale.
Winery employees can too.
But brokers, agents who sell wine for wineries but never actually take possession of it, cannot. Buyers have to taste wine before they invest in it. Brokers have always sampled wine too and no one ever stopped them. Now the alco-cops are threatening to enforce this unfair and unreasonable law. They could put a lot of good business people out of business.