I found this post via vinography…
-Retailers and restaurateurs are at the mercy of the small number of wholesalers who provide them with wine. The retailers and restaurants must choose only from the wines that wholesalers provide. This is despite the fact that there are many other wines they’d like to carry on their shelves and menus but are by law prevented from purchasing because they must deal only with wholesalers.
-Restaurateurs and retailers, just as in pre-prohibition times, often feel obligated to not criticize and follow the directions of the wholesalers for fear they will be “cut off” from the limited supply they actually have access to.
In essence, the corrupt circumstances that the three-tier system was meant to clean up after Prohibition ended now exist again, only with the wholesalers in charge.
and:
Yet, just as more wholesalers are needed to handle the demand and the growing number of producers, their number has been reduces to usually no more than three or four distributors in each state handling all distribution. In some cases, such as Texas, two wholesalers (Glazers and Republic) control 99% of the market
