Wines and U.S. Customs

[Hal]

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.