Now, a Supermarket Chain Faces a Boycott for Selling Trump Wine

In a world in which the President of the United States eagerly attacks department store chain Nordstrom for "unfairly" dropping his daughter's clothing line—a Twitter feud that was quite possibly started during the middle of President Trump's daily intelligence briefing—the once-simple act of a retailer carrying, or not carrying, a product in any way associated with the Trump business empire can now have massive implications.

Now, one group of Virginians is calling on fellow Americans to boycott the New York-based supermarket chain Wegmans for carrying wines from Trump Winery on its Virginia stores. Created in November after the election of Donald Trump, Stop Trump Wine aims to convince those living in Charlottesville, Virginia to put enough pressure on retailers carrying Trump Winery products, in this case Wegmans, that the retailers will have no choice but to drop the wines.

Outside of their recent efforts to boycott Wegmans—which has more than 92 supermarkets across the Eastern seaboard—Stop Trump Wine calls on restaurants, bars, wine tours, and wine distributors to boycott Trump Winery. The goals of the cause are as follows: "Stop distribution and sales of Trump Wine. Cancel events at Trump Winery. Support other Trump boycotts."

The group plans to carry out these actions until the day that "Donald and Eric Trump stop supporting and implementing policies of hate, and publicly pledge to preserve and protect the rights of all Americans: especially people of color, LGBTQ, Muslims, immigrants, and women."

Hey @Wegmans! Welcome to #cville. Wanna help us #stoptrumpwine? https://t.co/eglsKbCWBR pic.twitter.com/kJVilDnttt

— Stop Trump Wine (@stoptrumpwine) November 18, 2016

One section of the Stop Trump Wine website reads as follows: "Events during Donald Trump's campaign made it clear that Eric Trump, the president of Trump Winery in Charlottesville, Virginia, shares the views of his father. Let's demonstrate through economic action that the residents and business owners of Charlottesville will not stand for the hatred espoused by Eric Trump and those like him."

MUNCHIES has reached out to Stop Trump Wine for comment, but has yet to hear back. As for Wegmans, a spokesperson provided us with the following comment: "Our role as a retailer is to offer choice to our customers. For various reasons, we are sometimes asked to stop selling a product. Our response is always the same, no matter the product: How a product performs is our single measure for what stays on our shelves and what goes. Individual shoppers who feel strongly about an issue can demonstrate their convictions by refusing to buy a product. When enough people do the same, and sales of a product drop precipitously, we stop selling that product in favor of one that's in greater demand."

The Wegmans spokesperson went on to add: "We have been carrying wines from Kluge Winery (now Trump Winery) since 2008. When Kluge was sold in 2011 to Trump, we continued to offer their wines, now under the Trump brand…. again, in our Virginia stores only. To be clear, we currently carry five Trump wines in our ten Virginia stores only."

Burlington Coat Factory, Sears, Kmart, Nordstrom, and Neiman Marcus have all recently dropped or limited the sale of products associated with the Trump empire, including the Ivanka Trump brand. A key player in the ongoing boycott against Trump-branded goods has been the Grab Your Wallet campaign. In addition to pressuring companies carrying Trump products, Grab Your Wallet aims to reduce business at Trump properties like Trump Winery.

Will Stop Trump Wine and others be successful in their bid to effectively cripple Trump Winery? Only time will tell. If we wanted to feel a twang of self-loathing every time we looked in the mirror, we'd almost be tempted to say something along the lines of: "Talk about sour grapes!"