wine in airplane carry on
 

i am getting conflicting opinions. is it possible or not to carry 4 bottles of wine aoard an alitalia flight from rome to boston???? even alitalia has not answered my question. anybody sdone this in an above board fassion lately?? thanks for your opinion

Sorry: no wine or most other liquids unless in very small containers and carried in a separate, see-through bag.

To be very clear---

1) You CANNOT bring any liquid (this includes wine in a sealed bottle) through security. This means no wine brought from the outside.

2) You CAN bring liquid that you purchase in the airport after security. For instance, you can bring water or coffee purchased at a kiosk in the airport "air side" (that is, after security). Also, you can bring alcohol that is purchased in duty-free and delivered to you as you board the plane. This can be wine or hard spirits.

Hope that helps you! If you are planning to bring 4 bottles of wine purchased in Rome then you would have to pack them in your checked luggage.

LisaG

You won't be able to carry your wines through security at Boston if you have to catch another flight to your destination. You have to put them in hold luggage.

Bring bubble wrap and wrap the wine in it (and your dirty clothes for more protection )in your CHECKED luggage

There are 3 issues here:

1) Rome security: the 3-1-1 rule applies there. The only way you can bring 4 normal-sized bottles of wine in your carryon, is if you purchase the wines AFTER you go thru Rome airport security check.

2) US Customs in Boston: You are allowed 1L of alcohol per person duty-free. If your 4 bottles of wine is over this duty-free limit, you have to go through the "RED" channel and pay duty for the amount of alcohol above the allowance.

3) US Security: If you have a connecting flight from Boston to another US city, the 3-1-1 rule applies again. Your only option at that point is to put your wines into your checked luggage.

yk,
Duty on wine is pocket change, literally. Maybe 25c or so per bottle - whatever the exact # itt's still just pocket change.

Every time I return from Europe I bring more than my duty free allowance - some times just a few bottles, sometimes a whole case.

I declare what I have on the necessary forms, and everytime they just wave me through. They have no desire to spend the effort to collect a few $.

Unless things have changed there is only one customs line when entering the US. Everybody must fill out a form and hand it to the customs inspector after baggage claim. No such thing as red line/green line last time I arrived in the US.

Sorry, my #'s were off. According to the US embassy in Germany the duty is 36c/liter, or 27c/750ml.

http://germany.usembassy.gov/germany/faqs/customs.html

Unless Boston is your final destination, it makes little sense to rely on whatever the duty-free store will have to offer after security in the departure airport. And re-packing in Boston to check what you brought in carry-on would be a major hassle!

Instead, buy the wine you really want, and pack it in styro tubes (wineshops will have them) and dedicate one hardcase suitcase to the wine. Check it. Declare it on the form - most likely you'll be waved through, if not, it can take a long time for the silly bureaucratic effort to charge you the pennies it costs. But if you assume you'll get off scotfree and don't write it down, and the customs guys happen to want to take a look, then you're hosed.

Yep, I have never seen a red and green line or door in the US either, that's a European thing.

<i>And re-packing in Boston to check what you brought in carry-on would be a major hassle!</i>

Not in Detroit. After clearing customs I slipped the bottle of duty free jenever from Amsterdam into my checked luggage. Barely made it but I made it.

Ditto: cigalechanta. Last week coming back from California I packed my wine in socks and Ziplocs in checked luggage.

I concur: red/green is a European thing.

Hi P,

You will not be allowed to bring your wine through security.

I even had a 110 g tin of foie gras confiscated because it was over the 100 g limit.

As noted, bring bubble wrap.

Don't worry about Customs duty. The charge is so low now that they don't bother anymore.

((I))

I would not recommend taking wine in checked bags. I have seen bags being dropped from a height of 10 yards - repeatedly. A friend of mine has ruined the whole contents of his suitcase this way.

If your final destination is Boston buy some wine in the duty-free store after security. They have a decent selection of Brunelli, Baroli etc.

However, I assume you are able to buy the same wines at the same price in the U.S. if you do some internet research.

10 yards is 30 feet. Were they standing on the high board?

More seriously, anything you pack for checking, UPS, Fedex, or mail, you should feel perfectly comfortable dropping from shoulder height or throwing across the room. It will get rougher handling in the process. But you can pack it to manage that.

On the other hand, let me tell you what happens when the lid blows off the litre of maple syrup in your checked bag owing to pressure differentials.

I take back at least a case of wine 2-3 times a year.

1. it needs to be in your checked luggage.

2. forget duty-free, there are no real bargains on wine there and certainly not anything with a high value to quality ration. As said before, if your flight is not direct you will have to check it at some point anyway.

3. wine can go into a suitcase without problem if properly packed;
3a. I prefer to use dedicated luggage that is meant to carry wine.
3b. I use wineskins (they are resuable if using in dedicated wine luggage, meaning one with individual slots for each bottle) - this is the cheapest source for wineskin purchase: http://www.ftscontent.com/
3c. Have your luggage shrinkwrapped to prevent an accidental opening of the wine luggage.
3d. Mark the wine shipping container (or wine luggage) with tags that read &quot;FRAGILE - GLASS - HANDLE WITH CARE.&quot; You can make these yourself with a sharpie and they will tape it on when you check your bag, many wine shops that ship also have these tags and if you ask nice, they will give you some.

4. wine that you put in your regular luggage needs to be packed securely, personally, I won't pack reds with my clothes. Again, wineskins work well in this scenario.

5. Your customs form will ask you to declare the value of your wine (or whatever you are declaring), not the volume. As another poster has said, if they want to look at how much wine I am taking, and charge me the few dollars duty, I'm game. My total on a case and a half has not been more than 200euro or so. No where on the form are you being asked the total volume of the wine you are bringing back, just the value. Frankly, if you are buying a case of super pricey wines, rather than inexpensive ones to hold in cellar, (or drink now), you might as well have it shipped by the seller, assuming the seller ships.

Hope that helps.

peter has not said if he intends to bring it through security or buy it after security. ((*))

cherrybomb, thank you for all of this info! I've been trying to figure out how to bring back a case of wine from a vineyard in Provence with our family name. Extra suitcase, never thought of it!

A good option for an extra suitcase is to carry an empty, large, nylon duffel bag with you, then stuff all your dirty clothes inside for the trip home. You can then use your suitcase for the important stuff - the wine.

This is priced really well right now and works great:

http://www.iwawine.com/orstore/ShowI...ctID=WB401-005

It used to retail for $125, I think the dropped the price way low to make way for the $300+ &quot;TSA approved&quot; wine cases.

It is padded, but still pad your bottles with the wineskins/bubble wrap or even a piece of cardboard wrapped around the center (widest) part of the bottle and shrinkwrap to get the bag really tight.

As j62 mentioned, pack a collapsible duffle for your clothes or whatever and use the wine luggage to pack your stuff in so you are not taking an empty bag around.

I brought back a bottle of Tokaj from Hungary in October in one of my checked bags. The bag was a suitcase (not a duffel), but not hard-sided. I had brought bubble/foam wrap and a very large zip freezer bag for this purpose. I wrapped the bottle with the wrap, put the wrapped bottle in the zip bag and closed it. Then I used 2 of the large plastic bags left in the closet of my hotel room for dry cleaning purposes and enclosed the zip bag in them. I felt my clothes (which were also in zip bags, for organization purposes) would be reasonably protected from leakage that way. It worked.

Ah, those fun folks in baggage handling. This past Christmas I built a super fast computer for my son in college. For the trip back we packed the computer in a hard side bag, completely surrounded by 2.5 inches of foam rubber. Computer could not move and was totally isolated from almost any kind of shock--or so I thought.

When he arrived in Denver, the computer case was almost completely destroyed. They must have run over it with a truck to do the damage.

So, while I have often shipped olive oil and wine in my luggage, I can only imagine what it would have been like in that situation.

:-)

dave