bringing wine home

For carry-on, the rules in the US and Europe are the 3 oz rule. As you board your International flight, you can buy wine in the airport duty free shop, but once you arrive in the US, you either need to be at your destination or put it in a checked bag. Basically the only real alternative is to put your wine in a checked bag. Shipping alcohol has some ups and downs. First, you can not ship via regular mail and several well known shipping companies (Fed-Ex and UPS) also do not alcohol. Shipping internationally also requires some knowledge of US Customs and your resident State Alcohol Control regulations. Once you figure that out, shipping can be expensive, by most estimates, figure $10 a bottle. Another risk is that while many shops will gladly ship wine, they realistically have no complete knowledge each States regulations (assuming you are in the US) meaning there is a chance that your case of wine will end up stopped at Customs and you out whatever you paid. All said, the best option is to check a bag (no issues with checking returning to the US) and pack your bottles of wine in clothes or bubble wrap. In a standard carry-on, I can get maybe 8 bottles of wine, packed well. When you enter the US, declare on your customs card all bottles. One or two bottles will be duty free, and technically you owe duty (a Tax) on the rest, but in multiple trips I have never had to pay duty or heard of anyone who has. Bottom line, check a bag.

Donna - it is SO easy to pack the wine and check your luggage for your return flight. We do carryon going over and then check the bag for the return with several bottles of wine. I usually just wrap them in the heaviest clothing we have, and of course at this point I don't care that everything gets wrinkled because my trip is gone. We went to Napa Valley this March and even wineries there said that not everyone would ship to Atlanta - different states have different rules and while Georgia isn't bad, our rules have changed pretty recently so not everyone was up to speed on the shipping requirements. Anyway, our last two trips to Italy we did ship Olive Oil - some 40 bottles of it but we packed the wine.

We checked on shipping wine home last year and it would have cost us well over $100 to ship 6 bottles of wine. So, in the suitcase it went and we checked our bag on the trip home. Same thing this year. We always take bubblewrap along with us. We did buy a bottle of wine at the duty free shop at the terminal but Atlanta has screwy rules. We live in Athens and Atlanta was our final destination. I had to put the bottle back into a tote bag, get a tag from Delta and send the bag back thru as checked luggage. I didn't realize that when I bought it and the tote I had with me at the time wasn't padded that well (since it was a carryon. Luckily I had a sweater with me so I wrapped the bottle in that and sent it thru. Probably won't do that again. We never check luggage anymore either - just when we're returning from Italy and have some wine and olive oil.

We shipped a case of wine home from Italy back in October. The shipping charges alone were $120. As far as Fedex and UPS shipping goes, don't know about internationally (UPS website states they will start domestic EU shipments in June), but UPS DEFINITELY ships wine within the United States. Sent many bottles home from Napa (2006) via the winery that they were purchased from, and I believe that almost everyone of them came via UPS. I also get quarterly wine shipments from one of our Virginia wineries and they all come via UPS.

From UPS'S website: "UPS provides wine shipping services for approved customers who are licensed to ship wine."

Individuals still can't ship the stuff on their own.

Hi Donna,

Here are some tips from Rick:

Tips for Hauling Home Wine

Donna, Last trip to Italy we had dinner at a great little place in Rome & made friends with the owner & wife. I asked & bought one of their logo plates as a remembrance & the owner's wife packaged it up and then gave us the bottle that we had just finished off. It had their own label on it, same logo. My husband popped the cork back in (empty bottle). When we got to FCO & were checking in there was a drip, I mean a drip, in the bottom of the bottle & they took it away from us. We couldn't find out why, because it was obviously less than 3 ozs. The restrictions are also tight in the European cities, some more than others. Best to ship it. Have a great trip!