US importers in France?

I want to purchase wines from a shop in France but I need an importer. Any recommendations?

  1. Be very careful how you go about doing this if you live in a felony state.

  2. If don’t live in a felony state, then you could wait until the weather cools, and the store could simply mail the wine to you. You’d be cheating the TTB/ATF/WTFE out of some revenue - for still wines, it looks like it’s about $1.07 per gallon - but I don’t know whether cheating the TTB/ATF/WTFE out of $1.07 or $2.14 or $3.21 is a felony [versus some lesser category of a crime].

By the way, apparently it was a temporary change to the law, which lasted for calendar years 2018 & 2019, and it’s not clear what happens on January 1, 2020.

I just got my importer license but I can only sell to retailers and restaurants in my home state. I’d probably talk to Panzer, Greg at Envoyer, LOPA, or sneaker guy.

It has been a while since I have done this. Simple answer it is complicated especially if just a case or few bottles. If so it is really not worth it unless you carry them with you on a plane.

There are quite a few US importers who do this and bring wines to the East and West Coast of the US from a common shipping point. My info is stale on names. That is fairly easy and straightforward if the labels have already been approved etc. But the harder part is usually getting the wines from the retailer to a consolidation point (like Beaune). The boxes need to be labeled and documented well enough that it gets to your importers hands. Then you wait and wait and it will arrive. I am guess for a case it is over $200 now door to door.

Some retailers overseas are setup to do this for you and those are really your best bets. If they are not setup to do this I would pass unless you are trying to get 10 cases or something.

YLee,

We were just in Saumur France this past week and shipped 12 bottles back to NC using Mail Boxes etc. It’s not cheap, $200/12 bottles (be aware that a case over here is 6 bottles) and it will take 2 weeks.

While we were in the store, the folks in MBE said that if we wanted more wine they would take our order (local stuff but they are all over France), buy the wine and ship it. Not sure this will work for what you are wanting but just thought I’d throw this info out there.

Where is the store?

Lorraine

Thank you. You never know. One day this info can be useful to myself or others. [good.gif]

Sorry. I only know a way to get wine in from Burgundy