so here I am in napa, wondering how I am going to get all my lovely purchases home to boston??

I called the UPS's in the area and all quoted $80 - $130 per case.

I am thinking of just packing it all nice in the styrofoam containers and paying the $15 to put it on the plane. A little scared of breakage.... but I've brought wine home from Italy just in my suitcase wrapped in clothes and it was OK.

any advice?? what should I do?? thanks in advance for your advice!

You can only ship wines to some states by air. And shipping by ground at this time of year back east is not recommended since the wine can freeze while in transit if not shipped in temperature controlled trucks.

If the airline will take it, that's the best option. The styrofoam packs are very sturdy. I've taken many, many cases this way with no problems.

You could call Aero Packing and get another quote and advice:

707-554-2088

Agree with supercilious. It's too cold to ship to the east coast.

I've had wine packed and flown in the styrofoam boxes and they did fine.

Here's another choice if Aero doesn't work:

Stagecoach Express
877-232-5054
[email protected]

Go for the styrofoam and your airline. I've shipped dozens of cases that way over the year and never had a problem.

awesome thanks everyone for the advice. styrofoam and the plane is how I will go!

Did you check with the wineries? Some wineries will ship for you, some charge a huge fee for doing so, some not.

I don't know what the Napa wineries would charge, since we tend to just carry everything from Napa home in our car. But I've had cases of wine shipped home from the California Central Coast wineries and they were very reasonable in their charges.

we bought a case at one winery and they shipped that for us. for about $45

but we had 15 bottles purchased here and there that we had to bring home on our own.

we got a 12 bottle styrofoam cooler from one of the wineries we visited and a box. taped that up and paid the $15 to check it on the plane.

for the other 3 bottles we packed each in a "wine skin" that many of the wineries carried and put those 3 bottles in our suitcase.

all 15 made it home! no cracks or leaks, yeah!!! the styrofoam cooler was intact but the outside box looked like hell. three rips/holes and other damage to the outside. it *only* went from san fran to chicago to boston, but looked like it had been reused for multiples packings.

Congratulations!

LOL! on the way the box looked. The airlines seem to deliberately toss those boxes around. OTOH, I've had wineries ship boxes to me by UPS and had the boxes arrive in pristine condition.