Eric Taubert
Traveling through France and Italy always opens up ample opportunities for oenophiles to visit vineyards, taste vintages, and purchase bottles to bring back to the hotel room for evening sipping on the terrace.
Especially if you happen to be traveling through the Rhone Valley – or staying at wine-centric accommodations, such as the Hôtel Les Florêts located in the French village of Gigondas at the foot of the Dentelles de Montmirail in the Haut Vaucluse.
View a Video of Hôtel Les Florêts:
It’s easy to overestimate the amount of down-time you’re likely to have on a European getaway. And it’s also easy to get carried away after having some sample tastes at the vineyard and purchase a few too many bottles of wine to carry back to your hotel.
So – if you’re anything like us, as your wine country journey winds down, you may find that you still have a surprising number of unopened bottles of Vacqueyras (or Châteauneuf-du-Pape, or Amarone della Valpolicella, or similar) still sitting on the hotel dresser as the end of your trip inevitably arrives.
Perhaps you’ve even scoured an entire city, frantically searching for (and purchasing) a last-minute (and vastly overpriced) piece of sub-par luggage for the sole purpose of flying some of those amazing bottles of wine home to the United States with you. Packed the bottles in with the spent clothes of your almost-finished journey. Hefted the heavy suitcase all the way to the airport. Paid an additional baggage fee to get the extra piece of checked luggage onto the plane. And fibbed on a customs form because you weren’t exactly certain how many bottles of wine you could legally fly back into the US with.
At some point in this process it hits you: Between the cost of the suitcase, the extra checked bag fee, and the original cost of the wine – these bottles of grape juice are now some of the most expensive liquids you’ve ever owned…
That’s precisely why it hurts so much when you finally return home — only to find one of the now-priceless bottles has broken en-route and your already-soiled clothes are now stained past any point of wearability.
Let us assist you in cutting through the confusion pertaining to flying internationally with bottles of wine with the following few tips:
Checked Luggage Only: There are no TSA-regulated quantity limits for wine or alcohol in your checked (hold) baggage as long as it contains less than 24% alcohol (almost all wine falls below this threshold). Be advised, however, that state laws may be more restrictive than federal regulation (click here for more information). Feel free to check with the Alcohol Beverage Control Board of a specific state to find out what their policies are. Your airline’s checked baggage weight limits will apply, but you are free to use up your entire weight allotment for wine. Typical international baggage weight limits are 50 lbs (or 23 kg) – and you can estimate that each single bottle of wine weighs 3 lbs.
Bringing Wine Through Customs: There’s no limit on the number of bottles of wine you can bring into the US for personal use — although anything over the duty-free allowance of one liter (basically, one standard 750ml bottle) may be subject to a small duty. Understand – the duty-free limit is not the same as the total limit. Don’t worry if you have more than one bottle of wine in your checked luggage, just be honest and declare the actual number of bottles you are transporting (for personal use) on your customs form and pay the appropriate duty to the customs officer if they request it. This cost is typically around $1 or $2 per bottle – and, in our experience, many times the customs officer will just let you pass without making any payment because the effort to receive the duty isn’t worth the negligible amount at play.
MOST IMPORTANT: Plan Ahead: It is always more helpful to have a strategy in place ahead of time if you have an overseas trip planned and think you may want to bring some wine home with you. While you are packing, be certain to leave room for some return-trip wine in your luggage. One pro tip is to pack a light dufflebag into your luggage on the way over, utilize that for clothing on the way home; thereby opening space in your luggage for the newly acquired wine. ALSO – you should seriously consider bringing lightweight wine protectors with you – that way your precious bottles (and their surrounding clothes) will be in a better position to make it home intact.
Here are a few of our favorite Wine Travel Accessories:
VinniBag Inflatable Travel Bag – Reusable, Recyclable
VinniBag is a versatile travel bag that suspends your bottle of wine in an inflatable air cushion. The air chambers in the bag conform to the shape of the wine bottle – protecting against impact, leakage and shifting during transport. Made of very durable materials, VinniBag is made of durable materials — and is specifically engineered to withstand fluctuations in the altitude and temperature. PLUS – when they aren’t inflated, they take up almost no room at all!
VinGardeValise: The Original Wine Travel Suitcase
For the TRUE luxury wine connoisseur! Travel in confidence with the VinGardeValise — a must-have travel accessory that provides a safe journey for your favorite wine, beer & spirits. The flexible design of this wine luggage features removable inserts, making packing easy. The asymmetrical Hinomoto wheels make the VGV easy for you to maneuver, while a TSA-compliant lock is flush mounted and integrated into the suitcase. The VGV is quality all the way – and comes with a 10-Year Manufacturer’s Limited replacement coverage on any defects in materials and workmanship. Additional inserts, sold separately, offer temperature controlling wine chiller sheets and magnum size capability.
WineHug Self-Inflating Protective Travel Pouch
Pack your bottles with confidence! With Winehug’s self-inflatable technology and unique design – your bottles are safe while traveling! It’s simple to use. It can be used over and over. And it takes up very little space.
Disclaimer: Information is harvested (at time of publication) from publicly available sources and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed – hours of operation, availability, prices, details, and etc are all subject to change or withdrawal at any time and for any reason. All data should be independently verified.
