Taking wine on airplanes out of Italy?

Hey everyone - brand new here and enjoying the forums immensely!

My wife and I are a bit new to the wine world (a little over 2 years) because we left Mormonism but now all we want to do is talk about, travel in, and drink wine. We’ve been all over the world for wine tourism and Italy has been our favorite (3 times in the past year.)

The last time we came home from the Rome airport, Lufthansa gave us a fit about bringing back a case of wine that was packaged up very nicely in a completely safe shipping container. We have brought wine home from Europe probably 5 times in the past 2 years and never had a problem before. They told us that Italy had recently changed it’s laws about wine on airplanes. Luckily we were in first class and they let it slide but it seemed like there was a very good chance they would have taken about $1000 worth of wine and destroyed it.

So now we are heading out in 3 weeks to Rhone/Burgundy/Venice/Greece areas with our two daughters. We are departing home out of Venice and we are very worried that the same thing will happen.

Can anyone shed some light on the subject for me?

PS - the wine we had wrapped up and packaged in our normal suitcase wasn’t an issue at all (even though we didn’t tell them about it)

Welcome to the board.

I would doubt Italy has any laws about shipping wine on a plane. I think sometimes airlines can get fussy if the person checking it in does not know the rules. I have never heard anyone having an issue bringing back wine from Europe. You can call your airline to be sure if you would like.

George

I flew from Florence to Paris this morning with checked wine and had no issues.

Agreed - airlines lying to us - who’d have thought it. Recent threads show there is still a very bad attitude amongst some of them.

I suspect what might get them nervous, is a box that is obviously a box of wine. It’s not that they are worried that people are taking wine back, but a box of wine that is poorly packed e.g. standard packaging with flimsy cardboard dividers, could result in red wine damaging the luggage of other passengers.

The check-in folk don’t have a scanner to see the polystyrene packaging, so I can understand their nervousness, but not the lying about non-existent legislation.

On each visit we use bubble wrap to give good cushioning and the bottles then go in with the rest of out stuff inside suitcase or large rucksack. Only once have I put a styro packed half case through, and I’m not sure I’d do that again for the same reason you’re posting here.

There are some commercial offerings that cover this very scenario, indeed our benevolent forum dictator Todd French is involved with one called Wine Check. It looks from the pics like an ordinary suitcase with wheels and a handle, but with padded compartments for wine bottles on the inside. IIRC it’s configurable to take some wine + some clothes or all wine, but read up for sure.

I suspect a few forumites have them, so you could certainly do a search for wine check to see what their experiences are.

regards
Ian

p.s. enjoy the trip

Bravo on all of the wine travel in such a short period of time.

Never had a problem bringing back wine from Italy. It’s been almost a year since the last trip and heading to the Piemonte in a few weeks but not concerned.

We use the Wine Check Ian mentioned with a standard styro insert. The only time we’re questioned is when we fly out with it empty. It’s also handy going through customs with Global Entry - easy for them to see what you have and wave you on through.

Thank you for all the great info!

We actually have a Wine Check. The weird thing about it is that both times we’ve used it for bringing back wine, we’ve had a bottle of wine shatter on each trip. The first trip, I chalked it up to me not packing the bottles securely enough so this past trip to Italy, I made sure each bottle was super secure. And when we hit the US customs area, another bottle smashed. And this one was seriously obliterated not just broken. I honestly have no idea why/how it’s happening but it seems to be from the airline personal throwing the suitcase around and/or having a bunch of other suitcases on top of the Wine Check. Now we are seriously worried about bringing it on another trip because having a bottle break, pretty much ruins the bottles surrounding it (labels).

Does anyone have suggestions on what can be done with “fixing” our Wine Check?

Jeremy,

Did you use a styro 12 bottle (or 6 bottle) insert inside the Wine Check? That’s how it’s meant to be used.

Good question as that seems really odd… With a sturdy wine shipper i have never had a broken bottle.

George

I need to apologize! The Wine Check we have works GREAT. In fact, we are about ready to buy another one! I just used it to my latest trip to Alsace a few weeks ago.

It was the suitcase that has the 12 spots for wine (grey color) that we’ve had problems with! For some reason I thought that suitcase was called a wine check. The one we’ve had broken wine is called VinGuarde Valise I believe.

A question. Did you try to bring the wine on the plane or checked in in luggage. I have never had problems checking wine in, as other have said, but you cannot bring wine or any other large liquid containers on a plane. Could not tell from the OP what you were trying to do.

In Burgundy, you may want to check out Cote d’Or Imports. https://www.cotedorpdx.com/ At a number of wineries and wine stores, they will just forward the wines to Cote d’Or Imports, who will aggregate the wines and then ship them to you in the fall. If the winery or wine store sends it to them, you won’t have to pay VAT, which can be as much or more than the shipping cost, depending on the wines you buy. Shipping cost depends on the quantity of wine purchased, so the more you buy, the cheaper it gets - per bottle.

Means you don’t have to lug the wine around on the rest of your trip and that you can buy more in Italy.

We used this the last time we were in Burgundy (last year) and it worked out great.

Some quick googling shows you aren’t the only one to have problems with Lufthansa:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/lufthansa-austrian-swiss-brussels-lot-other-partners-miles-more/1244799-not-allowed-check-wine-luggage-out-flr-lh.html

Are you flying the same airline this time?

Unfortunately I am flying Lufthansa out of Venice. What is strange however is that I just flew Lufthansa out of Germany and the woman I checked my case of wine with to fly home from Frankfurt, had no issues whatsoever. So it seems like this is a problem specifically trying to check wine out of Italy possibly.

When we were in Tuscany, every winery offered to ship to the US for us. It was great. All arrived and no problems. We also used he Wine Check and have not had a broken bottle,

There was one time when Alitalia gave us some trouble about checking wine, but in the end they let us fly with it. I can’t remember what the issue was at the time, and it was in a styrofoam shipper.