Buying and Shipping Wine
by Ralph & Lahni DeAmicis
When you are touring wine country it is only natural to want to bring some of the wine home with you. After all, you’re going to be thirsty when you get there. Luckily wineries are happy to ship their products for you, selling wine is their business and they have all of the systems in place to do that easily. However there are restrictions related to individual states and wineries with surprising variables. In fact, there are so many that we couldn’t begin to list them all. Ask each winery where they can ship. In comparison, the local store front shipping companies are often more versatile.
Timing: High quality wineries will not ship during the hottest weather because of the potential heat damage to cases of wine sitting in hot trailers. If you buy your wine during the middle of the summer don’t expect it to arrive for a couple of months. If you need to ship in the height of the heat, purchase two day shipping and equip the boxes with cool packs available from the shipping stores.
When you’re assembling bottles from numerous wineries use a local shipper. They are experienced at shipping wine safely. If you are pressed for time the concierge at your hotel can arrange for the shipment. Shipping wine is not cheap. You’re not going to save money buying at the wineries, that’s not the reason to buy. It’s the experience of buying the wine where it was made and enjoying it later, with the memories of the trip. That what makes it worth the price! I’ve never come back from a winery trip and thought to myself, “I should have bought less wine”. Quite the opposite!
The wineries charge what they do because they will not compete with their retailers, and the tasting room is their main chance to sell their wines at retail prices. You can buy some widely distributed wines for less at home. However, even at big wineries many limited production wines are only available at the winery tasting room, which explains why collectors visit yearly and ship their selections home. A small winery that produces one or two thousand cases yearly may sell all of their wine themselves. There are a lot of wineries like that, and some of them produce wonderful wines.
If you’re only transporting a small amount, up to a couple of cases, an alternative to shipping is to bring your wine home as checked luggage. For this you’ll use specially made boxes that are available at the wineries and local shipping stores. Depending on how much luggage you have you may or may not have to pay for the extra bag. If you do pay the extra, the cost will probably be the same or less than shipping it through your hotel or from a local shipping company. It will also arrive home with you, after being exposed to a minimum of heat stress. This works especially well when you are gathering bottles from various wineries. If it is blazing hot and the wine is expensive then tuck some cold packs into the box just before you leave. When you visit Wine Country bringing some bottles home is always a good idea because wine is the best souvenir. Copyright 2009 Ralph & Lahni de Amicis
Ralph & Lahni DeAmicis are authors of the books ‘Your Day in Wine Country, Touring the Wineries of Napa and Sonoma’, and the Concierge and Tour Guide edition, ‘Their Day in Wine Country’. They are owners of a tour service, Amicis Tours, based in downtown Sonoma and San Francisco and can often be found driving clients around Wine Country and introducing them to a wide variety of wineries in both Sonoma and Napa. Their Website,
www.YourDayInWineCountry.com has a wealth of information and they can be contacted related to booking a tour at 707-320-4274 or by email to Lahni@SpaceAndTime.com. Buy the Book at Amazon.com
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