Anna Staver

Statesman Journal

Filling a wine growler at your favorite restaurant or liquor store is legal in Oregon again.

The Treasury Department's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has rescinded its March order that filling wine growlers must be approved as wine bottling houses.

"This is news that deserves a toast – wine growlers are once again legal in the State of Oregon," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Portland, said in a statement.

The order would have required businesses that filled wine growlers to seek federal approval on labeling, undergo inspections and keep detailed records -- effectively pushing these locations out of the wine growler businesses months after they started.

In 2013, Oregon's Legislature unanimously passed a bill allowing businesses with a state liquor license to fill and sell up to two-gallon growlers of wine.

Oregon's Congressional delegation wrote a letter to the bureau in March asking it to reconsider its decision.

In 2012, Oregon was the fourth-largest producer of wine in the country, with more than 900 vineyards and 515 wineries. The industry generates $3 billion a year in economic activity for Oregon and provides more than 13,000 jobs.

"I saw this issue as an example of a federal agency that is out of touch with the times," Wyden said in his statement. "In the letter to me and other members of the Oregon delegation today, the bureau acknowledged as much by saying that it needed to modernize its regulations regarding the sale of wine growlers."

astaver@StatesmanJournal.com, (503) 399-6610 or on Twitter @AnnaStaver