Yeah that’s what I’m doing as well.
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Sorry - what’s the big picture at the moment? Can wine be brought in right now at reduced tariff, or is their fear that tariffs will increase further?
Tariff now is 10%. But there are legal questions about the validity of those tariffs. And by law they terminate in late July (150 day limit). While admin is preparing the case for tariffs under different authority it’s not clear either when those can be implemented or whether they will apply to wine (and a host of other things).
So there’s a possibility that these tariffs will expire and the rate will be lower (is it zero on wine or 2.5% baseline?) for a period of time.
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Thanks Andrew! Right before you posted, I asked Claude to summarize (my instructions to Claude are to provide detailed analysis and then a summary at the end a college freshman can understand):
Plain-English summary (college freshman version)
Two guys on the wine forum named Andrew H and Andrew K are both racing to bring wine into the U.S. because of how the tariff rules just changed. Here’s the deal: The Supreme Court threw out one set of tariffs, but the government immediately replaced them with a new 10% tariff that was about to jump to 15%. So AndrewH told everyone: ship now to pay 10% instead of 15%. Meanwhile, Andrew K is being even more clever — he’s shipping his wine to a special kind of U.S. warehouse called “bonded storage” where wine can sit inside the country without paying any tariff yet. That way, if the new 15% tariff expires on July 24, 2026 (it’s only allowed to last 150 days unless Congress votes to extend it), he can pull his wine out and pay zero or low tariff immediately, while everyone else is still waiting for their ship to cross the Atlantic. It’s basically a positioning trade: get your inventory pre-loaded on shore so you can pounce the second a tariff-free window opens up, because those windows will probably close fast.
@Andrew_K - Where are you finding US bonded storage? Through CID?
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Claud missed that I don’t have wine pending import anywhere . . .
(And I’m wondering when Trump is going to lift the 10% tariff to 15% - he said he would a week after he implemented the 10% Section 122 tariff).
So which wine warehouses offer bonded storage?
No idea if there are public ones. CID is going to store my wine in their storage in DE in bond.
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I only have one case of 22’ BDX not currently delivered from WDC, so I will just pay the storage and roll the dice that tariffs are rolled back at some point. When that window opens I will request the shipment.
How much do you need to import to make CID worthwhile?
I imagine they have to compare the cost of storage in France v the cost here but they are anticipating a window when the tariffs are gone to be able to bring these in house and get them shipped.
If you have one case, assuming its not Petrus or Le Pin, why not just get it shipped and pay 10%?
Americans hate paying taxes.
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Yeah, but $2.16 per month is the “tax” for it being held…at some point the value of posessing the wine, when its only 1 case, outweighs the objection to the tariff.
What are you really “saving”?
Almost reminds me of the old days and free overseas storage Premier Cru “provided” argument folks made.
Rationality versus emotion
.18 cents per bottle per month is basically nothing. Not Petrus or Le Pin but I would rather not pay any tariff if I can avoid it. I canceled some Total Wine 22’ futures orders to not pay the tariffs. WDC doesn’t give me that option.
They charge by the 9L case equivalent to NY area, so it doesn’t really matter how much. The real rub is in getting your pallet from NY to anywhere else. Everyone charges per pallet whether there’s 1 case or 50 cases and it can run $700-1500 per pallet. So if you have a small pallet that can triple your total transportation cost.
If you store with Uovo and can potentially have them pick up the pallet and then move it through their system to your final destination, that could be an option.
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I’m having CID send wine in a consolidated shipment which will be released from bond on arrival. I asked about keeping it in bond, and they said to so so will require them to exclude the parcel from the consolidated shipment and treat it separately, resulting in several hundred pounds of additional fees. Wasn’t worth it, I’ll just eat the 10% rather than have the wine sitting until late July and hoping for a brief window. It’s also possible that the current tariffs will also be refunded and that CID would pass those on, but certainly not banking on that.
It’s also worthwhile to make sure the tariffs are calculated on the sellers value, not the buyers price.
Tariffs are going to be calculated on the invoices you provide CID, which would be your price paid.
How temperature controlled are these warehouses
As long as the value is legitimate. There have been a lot more USG requests for verification of valuation in the last several months.