Geerlings & Wade - Cutting Through the Vines (2,787 words)

"It's really beginning to end, in terms of how we run our business. It's our circulatory system, our lifeline," says Pearce.

The new system, nicknamed WineCat, was customized to include all the controls that have to be in place for Geerlings & Wade to comply with myriad state laws.

For instance, says Kober: "The system has to know whether it's OK to ship from California to Iowa—or that some reciprocal states have monthly limits on the amount you can ship to customers. The system has to keep track of that as well."