For The Love Of Port

In preparation for an upcoming trip to Portugal and Italy, I was inquiring with some folks in Portugal about shipping wine home to the US instead of lugging it around Italy on the 2nd half of our trip.

I got a curious response:
"Unfortunately, we can no longer ship wine to the USA. Since the 22nd of last month [July], they have closed borders with Portugal “temporarily”.

Has anyone heard of changes to the shipping laws from the US to Portugal?

I don't know about any recent change, but was always told it just wasn't really possible unless you are a licensed importer. Some people have shipped bottles and gotten lucky, but CBP could seize your shipment. There are a few importers that will handle your bottles, but that is pretty expensive if you don't have that many.

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I heard that it has changed, but can't at the moment remember the specifics. Something like estates/wineries can no longer ship to consumers, and it's being strictly enforced.

A little off...

Friend is in Italy and some producers were promoting shipping wines to US for $10 a bottle

Additional data point.

From one of the prominent producers:

"We cannot ship to a private address in the USA we can only ship to our importer in the US (we could until June but the US laws have changed), and then they could ship it to you but you would have to pay for the paperwork involved in Portugal and then in the US plus transportation…"

Stewart T. wrote:Additional data point.

From one of the prominent producers:

"We cannot ship to a private address in the USA we can only ship to our importer in the US (we could until June but the US laws have changed), and then they could ship it to you but you would have to pay for the paperwork involved in Portugal and then in the US plus transportation…"

There are a number of states, New York leading the charge, that have cracked down on out of state shipments. As such many shippers, FedEx/UPS/etc, have seriously reduced where they ship alcohol to. No idea if that is part of the problem.

You should be able to import it through an importer such as Adventures in Wine. It's not quick, easy or cheap though and the cost depends on how much you bring in and on how many different individual wines. But figure at least $10/min per bottle.

Andy Velebil wrote:There are a number of states, New York leading the charge, that have cracked down on out of state shipments. As such many shippers, FedEx/UPS/etc, have seriously reduced where they ship alcohol to. No idea if that is part of the problem.

It's all weird and makes no sense. MA is on the list of states that aren't allowing out of state shipments or at least many vendors think that. Yet other vendors ship here no problem; usually FedEx ground. Guess which vendors get my business? I am not professing to know the law on the issue, and don't care if the vendors don't know or don't care... Liquor companies have so much power in our State. We don't even have sales tax on alcohol they are so powerful. Guess that's why they aren't as psyched about out of state deliveries as the residents are? Residents have hardly the voice at the State House unfortunately as the liquor lobbyists.

Moses Botbol wrote:It's all weird and makes no sense. MA is on the list of states that aren't allowing out of state shipments or at least many vendors think that. Yet other vendors ship here no problem; usually FedEx ground.

Yeah, it's definitely weird and probably only makes sense to a politician or lobbyist. It sure doesn't to a consumer, and I haven't heard too many vendors (at any level) praising it either.

MA is definitely one of the "no ship" states - and in the case of MA it's both ways. No shipping in or out. But there are lots of vendors who are willing to risk it for the occasional sale... and that's true for just about all states. To ship to WA you're supposed to have a WA state permit, but I'm willing to be not everyone who ships to WA actually has it.

Most alcohol laws are archaic and stupid.