CA Wine by plane to MA?
 

I will be traveling to SF and was thinking of bringing home a couple bottles of Napa wine.
The question is: How? TSA does not allow more than 3 oz of liquid. I don't want to check the wine since it will be ruined by the freezing temps in the cargo hold.

Are you getting it at a winery??
You can ask the winery to ship for you.
I go to Calistoga every May and like to get a few bottles myself.
The wineries ship and they will ship as little as two bottles.

Due to varying alcohol laws, wineries cannot ship to every state. Sadly, MA falls into the "can't ship wine here" category.

Temps in the cargo hold are not freezing. It is fine to put wine in checked bags. Just make sure it is packed properly.

I flew SEA to MIA last week with a bottle of 02 Apex merlot in my checked bag with no problems whatsoever......

Enjoyed it on the cruise ship with dinner....

When you get the wine home don't drink it straight away

Some TSA won't even allow a small can of Vienna sausages. It has some water in the can. Looking up the TSA website, it is banned! I don't think there is a smaller can. Even sardines come in a larger can.

Check it. Just pack it very well to prevent breakage. It will be fine. I've done this with tons of bottles from Europe.

I brought a bottle of pinot home from France in my checked bag. The wine merchant suggested letting it rest for three weeks, and it was fine.

I just returned from Napa and Sonoma and brought an entire case home. BevMo in CA has shipping boxes with the styrofoam fittings for the bottles. Taped up the box real well and the airline even put a "Fragile" sticker on it for us. Made it home perfectly fine.

As for the temperature, even if they shipped it to you its still flying on a plane in cargo so likely not regulated temperatures there either.

As the expression goes, "It ain't cold in the hold!" (or not very), and it's damnably difficult to pressurize the upper1/2 of a cigar tube-round fuselage.

After all, they do put some critters down there, pets, lab rats, occasional experimental monkies, and only embalmed decedents.

Holds are pressurized to same pressure as rest of plane. holds are close to same temp as rest of plane. certainly not freezing. CA's finest cabs were just shipped to DC for the barrel sampling. they were shipped in the hold.

get a hard sided suit case, get burgundy separators. get some bubble wrap. pack 11 bottles per case. 12 bottles usually goes over 50 lbs. if you have a 72 lb limit, you can go to 15-16 bottles.

Especially if it's just a couple of bottles...we have brought wine FROM CA and back to CA form France and Montreal several times in our softsided luggage.

Most Napa and Sonoma wineries sell these things that are like bubble wrap but a little sturdier, I can't remember what they are called. Wine sleeves or something. If you pack a bottle in each and wrap your dirty laundry around it you should have no problem.

If you can't get those, regular bubble wrap will do. Use a couple of rolls around and then wrap that in newspaper and do the dirty laundry trick again. We have never had a bottle break.