At this point, most everyone in the industry is aware of the current global shipping crisis. Transit times from winery to distributor warehouse have crept to a snail’s pace due to container shortages, blank sailings, and backups at ports of entry. This all means lead times that are 2–3 times longer in comparison to this time last year, and to add insult to injury, we are all paying triple last year’s freight rates for the privilege. How and why did we get into this mess? How does this whole freight business function? Where are things heading? Let’s take a second to break things down.