travelling with madeira

[Isaac Krauss]

Hi All,

My wife and I are returning to Madeira 8 years after our honeymoon, having learned a bit about Madeira during that time. We are hoping to bring a number of decent vintage madeiras back home with us to the USA (maybe 5-10 bottles depending on what's practical). We don't travel much, and now that airport security forbids liquids, I'm not sure what is the most practical way to bring the wine home. If these questions have been answered a million times already forgive me (and please provide a link to the answers):

1) I have read that some wine lodges or shops will send the wine to the airport to wait for you beyond security. How generally-available is this service, and is this the best option? Can we simply pack the wine properly and check it as luggage? If so, is there a particular packing method one might recommend for 5-10 bottles?
2) I have read that the US customs doesn't really limit the amount of wine you can bring in for personal use (other than charging 3% duty), but that some states do. I don't seem to be able to find that info for Massachusetts (our home state). Does anyone have a good link to that information or know the answer?

Thanks a lot in advance!

-Isaac

[Glenn E.]

Can't help you with #1 or with #2 re: Mass, but as far as how to pack it I highly recommend a wine suitcase. I have an 8-bottle Wine Cruzer (www.winecruzer.com) and it's great. The 8-bottle size is perfect because it still weighs less than 50 lbs when full so you won't get charged for an overweight bag.

For customs, simply declare everything. Most of the time, as long as you're under the $$$ limit, the Customs agents are going to wave you through because it's not worth their time to fill out the paperwork. I've come through US Customs with as many as 10 bottles and they didn't even blink. Others have come through with more. Be prepared to pay the duty just in case, but odds are extremely good that you won't have to.

As I recall the $$$ limit is 800 per person, but that includes everything you bring back - wine, gifts, whatever.

I do have a funny story about a Customs agent and Pork Wine, though...

[Moses Botbol]

Bring a wine carrying case and don't worry about Customs. I brought home a case of wine from Portugal through Logan and they did not care or care to look at the bottles. I declare everything and low ball the valuation within reason.

You may have to pay the luggage costs both way. TAP did not charge me for the extra bag going to Portugal as it was so light. Cheers to them! Actually I were you, I'd bring back two cases as the deals in Madeira are worth the extra baggage costs.

[Steve Pollack]

The Winecruzer is a great idea, but if you don't want to spend the money, a 6 or 12 bottle styrofoam shipper will also do the trick. Just make sure to bring along packaging tape to seal the box.

[Glenn E.]

The Winecruzer is a great idea, but if you don't want to spend the money, a 6 or 12 bottle styrofoam shipper will also do the trick. Just make sure to bring along packaging tape to seal the box.

No way I'd trust a styrofoam shipper with something valuable. I know that many people here have done so and have had no problems, but I just flew back to Seattle from Philadelphia and watched the baggage handlers tossing each bag onto the loading conveyor UPSIDE DOWN. They were deliberately inverting each bag as they threw it.

I've received too many shipments in styrofoam shippers (encased in cardboard) where the bottom of the shipper was blown out by a bottle slamming against it, but was thankfully held in place by the cardboard.

Airline baggage handlers are not package shipping handlers. They don't care whether or not your bag/box is damaged because they have no liability to speak of. Airlines don't guarantee that your package will arrive undamaged - in fact they basically tell you that damage is normal and that they shouldn't be held responsible. While I have no problem trusting UPS or FedEx with a cardboard-encased styrofoam shipper, I'd never use one on an airline for anything I really cared about.

Yes a Wine Cruzer or other custom designed wine carrying case is expensive, but so is your wine.

[Eric Ifune]

I'd second the styrofoam shippers. I once looked in horror as my father dropped a full case shipper down an entire flight of stairs, but not one bottle was damaged. That gave me much more peace of mind. Just check it in as luggage. When it comes to customs, declare it all. The customs on wine for a case is only a few dollars and usually customs will wave you though, it's not worth it for them to do all the paperwork. They're more concerned about the total value of what you're bringing through and unless you have many thousands of dollars worth of items you'll be fine. It's when you don't declare that you get in trouble.

[Steve Pollack]

No way I'd trust a styrofoam shipper with something valuable. I know that many people here have done so and have had no problems, but I just flew back to Seattle from Philadelphia and watched the baggage handlers tossing each bag onto the loading conveyor UPSIDE DOWN. They were deliberately inverting each bag as they threw it.

I have only used a styrofoam shipper once while traveling back from Madeira with 12 bottles in tow. I had no problems, but that is an admittedly small sample. Glenn raises a good point, so I am curious whether anyone here has ever had any damage checking a styrofoam shipper as baggage. As Eric mentioned, these shippers are virtually indestructible.

[Sandy Becker]

I used a 12-pack styrofoam shipper without incident coming home from Portugal after the Harvest Tour. No damage to the box or ports and not even a second glance from customs (I, too, declared all the ports). But it was a bit awkward carrying a full, heavy box to and from the airport, so for our next trip I bought a WineCheck, a nylon cover, with wheels, that zips around the syro shipper. Ironically, on the flight to Portugal with the shipper empty, the nylon cover was ripped apart and the cardboard shipper broken. I ended up able to use 11 of the 12 slots in the styro shipper, got some extra cardboard and taped the whole thing back together. The ports all arrived home without any damage. Next trip I think I'll just take the plain 12-pack styro shipper. I'm 2 for 2 with it.
Air France did reimburse me for the cost of the WineCheck they destroyed.

[Roy Hersh]

Glenn wrote:

Yes a Wine Cruzer or other custom designed wine carrying case is expensive, but so is your wine.

I make the same comment when people turn their noses up at the Durand, a device to remove corks. Admittedly it would be better if it was less expensive, however, when I am taking corks out of old bottles of Port and don't want to take a chance that the schmutz on the top of the cork or the broken pieces of an old cork wind up in the bottle, it is invaluable.

For many years I brought up to a case of wine on board airplanes when traveling. After 9-11 changed all that, I used a styro-shipper on overseas trips to Africa/Europe with zero issue. Never had a bottle broken. I had three styro shippers with me twice, once on 4 flights back from So. Africa with a stopover in the UK and in 2009 with the 2007 VP cask samples with me. Even carrying 36 and 34 bottles with me (respectively on those trips) NOTHING ever was broken.

Since 2007, I've had an 8 bottle WineCruzer and have had one bottle broken flying between Portugal and UK. It was a grand bottle of 1952 Dalva. As valuable as that was, the mess the broken glass and sticky dessert wine made in my carrier, was a dreadful pain in the butt. Customs in one of those two countries had opened my WC, picked up the bottle and placed it back and let it drop into place. It looked like the bottle had imploded upon itself.

Anyway, a long story short ... feel free to carry a styro-shipper, as unless you are shipping Madeira at over $300/average (my way of thinking only) ... then I'd take any chance up to that level. If I was going to have $4k or more to ship, I'd probably pay to have it shipped professionally from the island, which is quite costly ... but a guarantee to arrive safely, if you make arrangements in advance. If you don't have an import license this becomes a lot more difficult unless you have good connections here in the USA. Otherwise, it is very difficult to ship wine to yourself in the states from Europe.

[Steve Pollack]

Roy, I noticed that you are closing in on 10,000 posts. Make sure that milestone post is a good one!

[Isaac Krauss]

Hi All,

Thanks for the advice and and anecdotes. Now we are in Funchal, but we haven't gotten any kind of wine carrier yet. Does anyone know where in Funchal I might be able to get the styrofoam variety? I suppose some of the wine shops or wine lojas proprietors might be able to advise me on that, but in case not, it would be nice if any of you know.

-Isaac
ps
So far we have gone only to the Blandy's wine lodge, but we plan to go to Barros e Sousa, D'Oliveira's and H&H soon. We had Blandy's 1968 Verdelho and 1920 Bual, both of which really made our day. However, the 1940 Sercial was pretty underwhelming; it just didn't seem to have much character, and I can't really say what it tasted like. I'm wondering whether anyone has had a similar experience with that one.

[Roy Hersh]

Isaac,

Good luck. Styro is hard to come by in Portugal, as almost none is available in Porto (with a few v. rare exceptions) and Madeira is even harder. I know they do have packaging at D'Oliveiras but it is not styro. Maybe try the post office in Funchal.

Please let us know what you find and we're looking forward to more details on your trip!

[Isaac Krauss]

Mission accomplished! We got back safely from our trip the night before last, along with 10 bottles of wine. D'Olivera's gave me styrofoam containers for each bottle, and we fit 6 of those into a nice cardboard box. It got ripped up a bit in the luggage and one of the styrofoams was busted, but thankfully no bottles broke. This was really my best vacation in over a decade. My wife, I and our two small children did a lot of fun things, but I summarize the wine aspect of the trip as follows:

We kept 500-mL bottles of 15-year H&H blends of Sercial, Verdelho, & Malmsey + the 15-year Cossart Gordon Bual in our apartment for "everyday" drinking purposes. We re-visited the MadeiraWineCompany Blandy lodge first, then Barros e Sousa, then had 3 very memorable trips to D'Oliveira's. Unfortunately, with so many portuguese holidays during our trip, there was not quite an opportunity to make it out to the H&H lodge in Camara de Lobos, though I glimpsed 6 bottles of "Grand Old Boal" on the shelf at the Garrafeira in the Mercado dos Lavoradores.

As for the wine details, I apologize that I'm not much of a wine writer, and I only mention specific flavors when they really overpower me.

Details:
MWC: Compared with our first visit to the Old Blandy lodge in 2003, I would say the selection of vintage wines available for tasting was greatly diminished, at least according to what they bothered to put on the "menu" that was available in their tasting room. Also, they didn't seem to be using the "vintage room" for tasting anymore, but were serving their vintages in the Max Romer tasting room, where they serve blends to the big tour groups. There I tried 5 vintages (ranging from 6-30 euros per glass):
Blandy's 1940 sercial (somewhat disappointing, not much complexity, with flat alcoholic finish)
Blandy's 1968 verdelho (flowers and fruit, loved it, bought a bottle)
Blandy's 1920 bual (delicious, but too expensive for our budget)
Leacock 1973 Verdelho (not as impressive as the '68 verdelho)
Cossart Gordon 1960 sercial (beautiful nose, palate and finish, and we almost bought it).
I also bought (but never tasted) a 500-mL bottle of Blandy's 20-yr Terrantez blend.

The next day we walked up to D'Oliveira's, and were repelled by the huge throng that was there, so we went straight past to Barros e Sousa, which was completely empty, and we got the nice welcome from one of the brothers, and we tasted about 6 relatively young Vintages/Colheitas. I was quite struck by how dry most of the wines were (the Sercial had almost no sweetness at all), though everything was delicious. It was also interesting that even the Malmsey's we tried had very little color. We bought the 1999 bual.

We made it back to D'Oliveira's in the late afternoon, after the loads of cruise passengers had left, and had the first of 3 amazing tasting sessions (in 3 visits). Although we ended up buying 6 bottles from them, I'm still in disbelief over the fact that I got to try (free of charge) about 30 of their vintage/colheita wines, dating back to 1875.

What I bought:
(2 bottles 1977 Terrantez, 2 bottles 1977 Bual, 1 bottle 1937 Sercial, 1 bottle 1957 "Old Wine" (30%Malvasia/70%TNM blend))

A few notable things from the tastings:
The 1937 was by far my favorite among all sercials I tasted (1971, 1969, 1937, 1928, 1924 and 1910). I tasted the '37 on two separate days, and it was consistently the winner, in terms of having a long beautiful (roller-coaster-like) finish in addition to the lovely butterscotch nose, but dry-ish complex palate. The 1928 sercial had very little nose, and was interestingly much sweeter, and finished very nicely. The 1910 had a beautiful nose, and a very dry palate; the finish was carmely but somewhat harsh, getting better at the end.

I found the 1977 Terrantez and Bual to be much superior to other vintages I tasted from the late 60's through the 80's, and for me a they had the complexity and long finish to give me the value I was looking for.

I had the 1927 Bastardo (my first). Very interesting, not much of a nose, quite dry (almost like a sercial), palate subtle, perhaps thin, and then an amazingly long finish.

The 1957 "old wine", a 30/70 mixture of Malvasia and Tinta Negra Mole was the best "sweet" Madeira I had yet tasted: strong passion-fruit/pinapple tastes, with enough complexity to balance the sweetness. Luis apologized that he had exported all of the bottles that were stenciled, so the only ones still for sale in the lodge were wicker-covered.

Though I enjoyed the 1922 bual which has been so favorably reviewed, I was particularly struck by the 1908 bual (bottled after 100 years), with a beautiful honey nose, an explosive concentrated sweet palate, with treacle and fruit, and a long carmely finish.

3 wines from 1900 were some of the best I had:
-The verdelho had a beautiful honey nose, on the palate it was one of the sweeter verdelhos I have had, incredibly concentrated, practically syrup, with floral and balsam flavors, and a long honey finish.
-The moscatel (my first moscatel), concentrated, complex on the palate, not quite as sweet as malmseys I have had
-The malvasia did not have so much of a nose, but tasted of fudge and fruit, a very characteristic malvasia flavor, a long finish, burnt but pleasant

1880 terrantez: beautiful floral nose, much drier than other terrantezes I have had.

1875 moscatel: certainly much sweeter than the 1900, almost cloying, but still very pleasant. Unmistakable muscat flavor, very interesting in a Madeira.

[Eric Ifune]

Issac,
Sounds like a great trip. D'Oliveria is great but Barros e Sousa is also wonderful in their quirky kinda way.

[Roy Hersh]

Absolutely great post and thanks Isaac for taking the time to write down the wines and your impressions. Did you get to the beautiful North side of the island or was your trip centered around Funchal?

[Isaac Krauss]

We did get around the island a bit. We did some hiking around Santana and Sao Jorge, as well as Pico Ruivo, walked along some levadas in the Rabacal area, and also took a day trip to Curral das Freiras. We hoped to get to Ponte Sao Lourenco, but didn't have good weather the day we hoped to go. All around, it was a marvelous trip though. The best vacation in a decade, certainly. I'm not sure when we will get back, but these are memories we can cherish.