I have around 46 bottles of wine at All Ways Cool which I need to ship to Singapore - it goes without saying that I’ll need a cold-chain, temperature-controlled shipping service up to my front door.
What would you do in my shoes? I’ve asked All Ways Cool for a quote but they’ve been taking some time to get back to me. I suspect it might be quicker for me to get everything delivered to another storage facility in Napa, and ask them to handle the shipment to Singapore. I’d be grateful for any recommendations as to which storage facility that should be.
You might try and reach out to Andreas at Modern Wine Club in Singapore. He might be able to reasonably consolidate your inventory on a container https://modernwineclub.com/.
Also bear in mind for personal declaration, you have a 10L limit over the duty free allowance (of 2L) for one person, else it requires a commercial permit.
Note: before they got rid of the customs app, I brought in over 10L and just made 2 declarations for the same day. Not sure if the web app allows this or not. I hadn’t realized there was a limit so only dealt with that once (was not checked so can’t say if this would fly or not) and now just keep it to one wine check if just me travelling.
I suppose before you’d spend thousands on flights… Maybe see if there are air freight options. I’ve not done air from the US, only Europe (was via DHL). Shouldn’t have to deal with that 10L limit that way…
Resurrecting an old thread, but I was in the same position a few months ago and thought I’d share what works for me: Global Storage Network, the storage “back-end” of WineBid, have very reasonable shipping costs to Singapore. For me, it’s been worth signing up for their ‘Pro’ membership to get shipping discounts.
Delivery occurs via FedEx and is very fast - usually 2-3 days! It won’t be cold-chain, but I comfort myself that the cargo hold of a plane is pretty cool… My main concern is on the Singapore end, but boxes do get delivered to my house fairly quickly and don’t appear to sit in a warehouse for several days.
Unfortunately FedEx Singapore is far less efficient at customs paperwork than DHL, but at least the wine gets delivered first, and then a week later the customs invoice arrives in the mail (yes, on paper!). But it also means that the wine doesn’t sit in a warehouse in Singapore for too long…
It’s most economical to ship in multiples of 12 bottles at a time. There is no volume discount for shipping, say 4x12 bottles in one consignment will cost the same as four separate shipments of 12 bottles each.
Another nice side benefit is that I can mix & match bottles from winery memberships and bottles purchased on WineBid in the same shipment…
Sure. I have the ‘Pro’ membership tier. Shipping 12 bottles to Singapore has ranged from USD 170-185 over the past 12 months. I guess this varies a bit based on fuel prices at the time, etc…
Yep, it’s all a little relative, I guess… Even with the shipping cost, and the import duties on arrival in Singapore, it makes my Kistler/Aubert/DuMOL/etc cheaper than buying locally. And I get access to niche wineries like Sphaerics that aren’t available at all in Singapore… But definitely not worth it for $30 bottles!
I suppose that at the max bottle of USD100, the12-btl quote is OK, but would feel some uneasiness if shipping more expensive bottles given some unknowns on duration of transit without proper temperature and storage conditions.
I spend a fair amount of time in the Philippines these days and I’m also looking for reasonable wine shipping processes.
. On paper GSN that Sascha used sounds they know what they’re doing. You can control that part of the logistics at least. For the long haul I learn that DHL pretty much cornered this market.
My concern is reasonability in costs and, of course, shipping conditions, especially with most that I’ll be shipping will be from my stash that have (imo) good amount of bottle age. Do you have, or can you share, information on DHL shipping process and cost? My storage-cellar is in NYC, if that matters.
Unfortunately no hands-on knowledge yet. If luck has it I’m hoping to get my hands dirty in 6-12 month.
Read this post awhile back, then went on googling. I believe it was either Hillenbrand or DHL that has a detailed workflow on their site. Wish I had bookmarked it.
I laughed a little seeing the headline. Really? If you’re gonna smuggle at least try something fancier than beers, and good Lord, not Tsingdao ! Then I read the calculation here and couldn’t help at least feel some sympathy for that dude. $1USD per bottle of Tsingdao gotta be like 20-30% over cost at least right?
“ Under current Singapore Customs rates, beer carries customs duty of S$16 (US$12.50) per litre of alcohol and excise duty of S$60 (US$46.80) per litre of alcohol—a combined S$76 (US$59.30). Imported goods are also subject to 9% GST.
A 330-millilitre bottle of beer at 5% alcohol by volume contains about 0.0165 litres of alcohol. At the applicable rates, customs and excise duties would total about S$1.25 (US$0.98) per bottle, excluding GST.“
. On paper GSN that Sascha used sounds they know what they’re doing. You can control that part of the logistics at least. For the long haul I learn that DHL pretty much cornered this market.