Buying Wine to Be Shipped

Tony, I'm sure you're aware of the limitations on liquids in carry on luggage. If you have a direct flight from Italy to the US, then you can purchase wine at the duty free shop at the airport and carry on. Otherwise if you bring wine with you it has to be in your checked bags. Re getting it shipped home, this has been discussed on this and other sites like trip advisor. I think you will be unpleasantly surprised with the costs.

I went on a tour in November and several folks bought bottles of wine in different locations. They were able to get a winery to pack them in styrofoam boxes (looked like it held a case.)
They then checked the foam case as a piece of luggage. I emailed them after we returned and they reported no breakage. I'm not a big wine drinker - but I think each person was allowed 4 bottles??? does anyone know the limit??

Frances said: "I think each person was allowed 4 bottles??? does anyone know the limit??"

I don't know of any limit, but over certain levels you may have to pay some extra. For carry-on, it depends on the weight limit of the airline. For most, if you're over 50 pounds in a checked bag, you'll have to pay extra. If you have a very light-weight bag, you can bring home a dozen bottles of wine and still be just under 50 lbs.

Regarding customs, from what I hear, the customs charge is a whole lot less than the cost to ship the wine home (glass bottles of liquid are heavy). Often, they say, the customs charge is just a few dollars and the agent will just wave you through because the amount due isn't worth the paper work to collect it.

Also, check with your airline just to be sure...most allow alcohol, but at least one Italian carrier forbids checking bags containing alcohol...as if anybody could get wine to burn!

Everybody I now who has studied the subject says checking the wine as luggage is the way to go. Shipping home from Europe is prohibitively expensive.

I would also suggest putting a few well cusioned bottles in your checked luggage. Shipping is an option, but the cost of shipping and the hassle of trying to sort out any regulations are rarely worth it. Added to that, since you are in PA, there is the issue of your state having some of the most restrictive alcohol laws in the country. Shipping home may mean that your wine is blocked at customs. Figure that between your wife and you, over a case of wine can be put in checked bags.

We bring back a few bottles in our luggage and wrap them in bubble wrap and ziploc bags. Regarding having wine shipped, it is costly. We were recently in St. Emilion near Bordeaux and learned it costs around $300( one case) to have wine shipped. They ship it to New York(not sure that would be true for all--we live in Georgia) where it goes through customs and is inspected, etc. and then it is delivered by Fedex to your front door.

We shipped a case back from Lucca last October....I think it was about $150 - $175. It's more expensive that checking it as checked baggage, but the overall convenience of not having to lug it around was more than worth the difference.

Bill said, "...the overall convenience of not having to lug it around was more than worth the difference."

That's certainly a consideration. Even if you have a rental car to carry it in, it's probably best to take the wine out of the car and keep it in your room until you're ready to head home. The heat can really build up in a car and damage the wine. So if you're moving around to different towns you'd have to move it to and from the car several times.

My own recommendation is to buy your wine late in your trip so you don't have to lug it around as much, and buy this suitcase to carry it in. At just 7 lbs., it's the lightest suitcase of this size I've found, meaning you can carry 12 bottles of wine in it and still not have to pay for extra weight when you check it on the plane. It's easy to roll so unless you're afoot and backpacking it's not that hard to manage.

You cannot carry full size bottles on the plane (see earlier posts). You are allowed one litre per passenger duty free, after that you must pay duty tax. See US Customs info Here. I have heard, but have no personal experince, that the amount limit is rarely enforced, but I personally wouldn't test our fine Customs officials.

If it's important to bring back something that commemorates your anniversary, pack bubble wrap, etc. to get a bottle or two home in your checked bag. I personally think Italian wine is best enjoyed in ITALY, on a terrace, overlooking some spectacular scenery. Shipping is too iffy a prospect for the high cost (breakage, heat, cold, can all really impact the quality of the wine). But that's just me!

I did a little studying at the Customs and Border Patrol website and found this...

As mentioned above, you can bring in 1 liter free of duty. A standard wine bottle is 3/4 of a liter.

After that, duty is generally 3% of value and the IRS excise tax is generally 21-to-31 cents per 750ml bottle of wine.

So if you bring in 3 bottles of wine that cost you $20 each, you pay about $1.70 (total) in duties. I guess that's why they say, unless you bring in a lot of expensive wine, the duty charge is so low they often don't even bother to ask for it.

Show your work section:
The first one's free, so you pay on two of them.

3% * $20 = $0.60 duty

$0.60 + about 0.25 excise tax = $0.85/bottle

$0.85 * 2 bottles = $1.70 total

Last trip we brought back any huge quantity of wine was 2001 from France. I think we brought back about a dozen bottles in 2 small carry on bags. Customs in New York never blinked twice when I told them how many bottles we had. I put them on my customs declaration and we were not over our limit for purchase amounts. Customs officer told us to "enjoy". Of course, much has changed since then. We bought about the equivalent of 2 cases of wine when we were in Napa several years ago and had it all shipped back to us. We are planning one wine tour and will probably just "bite the bullet" on shipping costs home. Just don't want the hassle of dragging it around with us for 5 days on and off the train.