Flying Home With Wine and Spirits: Packing and Allowances

A drinks trip usually ends with bottles you can’t buy at home. Getting them there intact and within the rules takes a little planning — most of it before you buy.

Cabin or checked?

Standard security rules limit liquids in cabin bags, so bottles bought before security go in checked luggage. Bottles bought airside in duty-free shops can usually travel in the cabin in a sealed bag — but if you have a connection, rules at the transfer airport apply too, so keep the receipt and the seal intact.

Packing bottles safely

• Wrap each bottle in clothing, then place it in the centre of a hard-shell suitcase, surrounded by soft items.
• Reusable padded bottle sleeves are inexpensive and worth it for more than one or two bottles.
• Seal each bottle in a plastic bag — if one breaks, the bag saves your clothes.
• Sparkling wine is under pressure; pad it especially well.

Allowances: check two things

Airlines limit alcohol by strength and quantity in checked bags, and your home country sets duty-free and customs allowances that differ by where you’re coming from. Both change, so check your airline’s dangerous goods page and your customs authority before you buy — not at the airport.

When shipping makes sense

For a case or more, many producers and specialist shippers can send wine home. It costs more per bottle than a suitcase, but removes the weight, the breakage risk and the allowance question. Ask at the cellar door.

A note on duty-free

Duty-free isn’t automatically cheaper, and the cellar-door or distillery-only bottles you found on the trip won’t be there. Buy the special things at the source.