<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by slawecki:
My wife and I frequently bring 12-18 bottles of wine from europe to IAD. ...
Declare it. Tax is $3.85 a dozen. I have never been charged. ...
For easy packing: Take an extra old hardsided piece of luggage. take sets of burgandy/champagne paper mache inserts, for both inside and outside each row of wine. Pack towels around the top and bottom, maybe a bit of bubble wrap on the outside. Get a good strap, and throw a tape wrap around the luggage. Make certain it has a good handle. 18 bottles weigh a lot. ...</font>
Just go to your local wine/liquor shop to get
those paper mache inserts or they make cardboard wine bottle carrier/holders that will fully flatten down for packing.
Also, you may want to invest in a wine bag, like that which is used to bring wine to events and dinners, such as is used by those who have cellars and bring their own wine to such places. Mine is small, but I've seen some people with massive wine shoulder bags, and they keep pulling bottles out, until it seems they were carrying a whole case in there. A bag could be flattened and packed on the way over, then filled and carried on coming home.
Further, depending on the time of year you are traveling, or just as a general rule, you would not want to pack your wine if it is good stuff that you don't want damaged. Wine should be kept in a fairly standard environment, a humid 58 degrees, which doesn't always happen, but will still remain true if not exposed to
extreme temperature changes. I would think the hold of a plane could easily go to such extremes.