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+--- Thread: Wines and U.S. Customs (/thread-19062.html)
- Hal - 05-30-2002
So I'm travelling in Italy...Lavagna, Lucca, San Gimignano, Florence...drinking wine everywhere and buying bottles for picnics and to drink in the room. I decide it would be grand to bring a few bottles home, like the 1997 Fontanafredda Borolo I bought in an Italian supermarket (Superal in Poggibonsi) for about $14. Well I ask around among wine sellers, other American tourists etc, and get no definitive answer on what's legal in terms of US Cutoms. So I stash eleven bottles in my checked luggage because one thing I was told was that I won't be allowed on board with glass bottles for security reasons. In Nice airport the agent asks if I have any bottles in my luggage and I say yes. She allows me to bring them on board. So I distribute them between my carry-ons and my wife's.
So we approach Newark and they hand out those customs cards to fill out. The card says nothing about wine or alcohol, so I just declare $75 worth of purchases, unitemized.
Well we zip through customs and hop in a cab to home. At home I check out the US Customs website and they say each returning traveller is allowed only one liter of wine without paying any duty. They also say that because state laws vary, tariffs vary depending on where you land. I'm glad I didn't look it up before I left because I would never tried to bring the wine home. By the way, if you travel abroad with a Japanese camera and can't prove you bought it in the US when you return, you will be charged an import duty. Check out the US Customs website for some interesting reading.
- Innkeeper - 05-30-2002
Glad everything worked out Hal. We have regularly advised folks around this board to declare every single bottle bought on their customs form including price, whether it is shipping containers, luggage, or carry on. The worst that can happen is that the wine in excess of 1 liter per person will be charged a small duty, a couple of dollars per bottle. We have never had a single person report back that they were charged these fees. There is good reason for this. It would most likely to cost more to process the paperwork than the duty they would collect. Of course we haven't heard of anybody coming back with more than a case or two.
- Hal - 05-30-2002
Thanks for the reply, Innkeeper.
Further study shows the import duty would probably be no more than 3%, which would still represent great savings over the price of the wines in the US, if available here at all.
I intend to follow the rules next time.
I was amazed at all the 1997's still available in Tuscany.
- wondersofwine - 05-30-2002
Then there was the time when I was working in Germany and bought a tin of duck pate in Strasbourg. I wanted to mail it to a friend in Maryland. I called the military customs office and asked about sending it. I could tell he was reading right off a paper regulation. "Does it have a USDA stamp?" he inquired. I said "No, because I bought it in France." "Then you can't send it because it might not be totally consumed and the remainder in the garbage might be eaten by a dog and the dog's feces might spread contamination"...at this point I started laughing and said "My friend's going to eat it--not throw it in the garbage." He said, "Mam, this is serious." Upshot was, I didn't mail it but carried it with me on the airplane on my next trip to the USA. Customs asked if I had anything to declare and I said a can of duck pate and they waved me through. I gave it to the Maryland friend in person.
(Never heard about any dire epidemic among dogs and people in Maryland resulting).
- Bucko - 05-30-2002
I landed at SFO after a trip to Alsace last year, declared 3 cases of wine as per the law, and they waved me through, no duty, nada.
- Hal - 05-30-2002
I like the idea that each particular agent uses his own judgement. I suppose if you look slimy enough and have crates of stuff you'll get pulled over. Three cases may be the limit of what I would be willing to carry because it's so heavy. Bucko, was your wine in checked baggage or in carry-on?
- Bucko - 05-30-2002
Stuffed everywhere. We had one styro shipper for a case in baggage, a case split between us as carry on, and a case rolled up in clothes in our suitcases. A regular Grapes of Wrath.....
- hotwine - 05-30-2002
I once came back from Germany into JFK and had four bottles in my briefcase as carry-on and 15 rolled up in dirty laundry in my suitcase as checked baggage. Declared them all, and like Bucko, paid zilch in duty. Drank the last one, a 1980 Lafite, just a couple of years ago.
- Thomas - 06-02-2002
Yeah, well, not to save on duty but because I hate to carry things when I fly, I stuffed six wine bottles in a suitcase, real nice. Got from Italy to Paris without a problem. When I left Paris I restuffed them just as I had before. At DeGaulle Airport I was randomely checked for security and so I had to open my luggage at check-in. The guy moved things around in there. When I got to Newark Airport no problems--and no duty to pay. But when I got home I discovered three shirts and a few pairs of socks had turned purple, and broken glass had been all over one side of the suitcase. The white wine bottles, however, did not break.
Moral of the story--I don't know, waddayu think, Hal? Why haven't we seen you lately?
[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 06-02-2002).]
- Hal - 06-03-2002
Foodie, you'll see me soon.
This weekend if you're in.
You know we were busy planning the wedding and left on the honeymoon.
- lizardbrains - 06-05-2002
Fear of the Unknown.
I have only been "abroad" once, and when I came back through U.S. customs I was SOOOOOO nervous. I wasn't 21, and I had brought back a few bottles of wine. I didn't declare anything on my declaration slip, only because I had no clue how to use it, what to write, and if I'd be arrested for buying too many clothes, newspapers, souvenirs, and postcards while over there (I was clueless). When I got off the plane, my heart was beating so fast: I was worried they were going to not let me in because I had some wine, and I wasn't of-age.
Anyways, he saw my cheerful face, stamped my passport with a Minnie Mouse (I still don't understand that), and let me through.
Ugh, I wish they would just let you know the rules, so you wouldn't have to worry. (Or you could at least know what you did need to worry about!)
- winedope1 - 06-05-2002
you never know what customs is gonna do. I've been abroad a number of times and have never been stopped. Maybe its because I'm small and look young?? Don't know. Went through customs in NY and the agent didn't even really look at me, just glanced at my passport and declaration and waved me through. Guess I don't look too scary...haven't been questioned even when I have declared alcohol on my form.