Flying with Port

[Michael Hann]

How does a bottle of filtered, T-corked, LBV Port respond to flying in an unpressurized luggage compartment, for example in a piece of checked luggage? Is there a significant risk of the T-cork being driven out by the pressure differential between the unpressurized luggage bay and the ullage air inside the bottle? What about a driven cork unfiltered LBV Port?

[Carl D]

We've flown with bottles of wine - Port and otherwise, T-stopper and driven cork - many times without issue. Luggage compartments on commercial airliners are not unpressurized - they're at the same pressure as the cabin.

[Eric Menchen]

Luggage compartments on commercial airliners are not unpressurized - they're at the same pressure as the cabin.

Which is to say, typically pressurized to the equivalent of being at an altitude of 8000' for most planes. For the new Boeing Dreamliner, 6000'. Wine shipped to me from California undergoes a lower pressure, crossing the Rockies at 10,662' if the truck goes over Vail Pass on I-70.

[Peter W. Meek]

Here is a useful table of pressures at different altitudes . The last column is useful (kPa) since normal pressure at sea level is 101 kPa. This lets the number represent (roughly) the percentage of sea level pressure at the different altitudes listed.

For the three mentioned so far:

101 kPa --- 100% --- sea level
81.2 kPa --- 81% --- Dreamliner cabin and cargo pressure 6000'
75.3 kPa --- 75% --- Normal airliner cabin and cargo pressure 8000'
69.7 kPa --- 70% --- Pressure at head of Vail Pass at roughly 10,000'

50% pressure occurs somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 feet.

I don't know about T-caps, but aren't most long corks emplaced with the neck (and air above the wine) subjected to a partial vacuum? (To prevent over-pressure and bottle breakage caused by driving the cork.) If this lower pressure persists (I suspect it doesn't last more than a few weeks) then there would be even less effect when the bottle is subjected to lower outside pressure.

[Eric Ifune]

Have shipped driven corked wine many, many times in checked luggage without issue. Have also shipped wine in tee type stoppers in wines I've already decanted without problems as well.

[Andy Velebil]

Short of a very old bottle/cork doing so (which I figured would happen), I've never had an issue with wine leakage while flying from any type of closure.

[Roy Hersh]

Having just flown (yesterday) from Porto to London with a slew of bottles in the belly of the plane, as I have done many a time and even Porto to Seattle ... never once have I had an old or new T-cork or driven cork bottle leak whatsoever.

[Luc Gauthier]

When flying with port , do not , I repeat do not pass canadian customs

[Andy Velebil]

When flying with port , do not , I repeat do not pass canadian customs

how bad did they get for when you came back from Porto?

[Luc Gauthier]

Only had 4 bottles in my luggage ( 2 x 750 l and 2 x 375 ml ) ( we're only allowed 1.5 l of wine )
So declared 4 bottles .
Customs officer said : If he were to look in my luggage would he find 4 bottles ?
I said yes , but he didn't believe me .
So he proceeded to open my luggage only to find 4 bottles !!
I said one of the bottles was a gift so I didn't know the price .
Anyways he charged 10.00 $ .
All of this took 30 minutes !"/$?&*$%?
And of course he finished with the obligatory " Bonne journée "
I just made my connecting flight to Montréal .