(Watchdog) - Wine connoisseurs in 30 states can buy their vino the 21st-century way: From Amazon.

Pennsylvania merlot lovers can’t count themselves as so lucky, thanks to stringent regulations that largely bar the direct shipment of wine to residents in the Keystone State, where the government has kept an iron grip on the booze industry since the repeal of Prohibition.

While it’s not impossible to have wine delivered to your doorstep in Pennsylvania, consumers must know how to navigate a bureaucratic system. Even then, they have limited choices when it comes to finding a fermented beverage that pairs well with their artisan cheeses.

Retailers cannot ship to Pennsylvania, and most wineries across the country don’t even look at Pennsylvania as a place where they can legally and efficiently ship wine, “so they simply don’t,” said Tom Wark, executive director of the American Wine Consumer Coalition in Washington, D.C.

“Pennsylvania is considered a state where no one wants to do business in terms of direct-shipping,” he said.

Legislative efforts to relax Pennsylvania’s direct-shipping laws have stalled, even when considered independently from ongoing attempts to privatize the state’s monopoly on liquor and wine sales.

The state House passed a direct-shipping bill earlier this year, but Wark said it still falls short, largely because it does not allow retailers into the game.

The direct-shipping myth

In most cases, Pennsylvanians must buy their wine and liquor from about 600 state-owned stores.

When those shops don’t carry a wine that a customer wants, they can’t just log onto Total Wine’s website and queue up a special order. The wine, beer and liquor retailer has an apologetic message for Pennsylvanians trying to order booze online: “Sorry! We cannot ship these items.”

So what then?  There’s another way, as long as customers don’t mind spending a few more bucks and letting the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board playing middle man.

First, the customer has to search the PLCB’s product catalog to make sure the particular wine isn’t sold in the state stores. If it’s not, then he or she can order it from a licensed direct wine shipper.

That can be expensive. The direct wine shipper adds a shipping charge and a $4.50 handling fee, in addition to charging Pennsylvania’s 18 percent liquor tax and 6 percent sales tax.

Customers have to pick up the wine at a state store, and they cannot buy more than 9 liters of wine a month from a single direct shipper.

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board describes the process as direct shipping, but that’s a misnomer that only further muddles Pennsylvania’s confusing protocols, said Steve Gross, vice president of state relations at the Wine Institute, an advocacy and policy group representing the wine industry in California.

“That’s a special order to the store. That’s not the home delivery that everybody is accustomed to in the other states,” he said.