I’m off for a trip to the Douro at the end of the month, so will need a wine shipper that can hold at least a dozen bottles. For shippers that equally protect the bottles, next priority is a balance of cost, collapsibility for easy storage, and environmental soundness.
Recommendations?
Has anyone experience of Spirited Shipper? They are cheap, collapsible, and cardboard. But are they strong? Also worthy of note is that they do magnum shippers. (But it’s not worth ordering ten boxes just to get screen-printed onto them.)
Just go to your local wine store and buy a styro 12-bottle shipper, or get one from someone else that has one. Trust me when I say styro is best when traveling in the Douro and MOST IMPORTANTLY it protects better against the guerrillas (aka: airport baggage handlers) that love to try and destroy everything.
Those ones with cardboard dividers dont protect as well as the styro does. And the styro helps to insulate the bottles from heat fluctuations. Every box I've brought back from the Douro has had the airlines rip some kinda small hole in the side, exposing the stryo. With the type your looking at, your bottle will be exposed or broken by what ever ripped the hole in the side.
Andy V wrote:Just go to your local wine store and buy a styro 12-bottle shipper
I endorse these as well, along with:
1) Double bag the shipper in a garbage bags that you tie closed. Don't bag the bottles, bag the styro (which protects the bag from glass shards).
2) Consider a hard-case suitcase to protect against punctures. Fly out with it, then throw your clothes into a duffle for the return journey.
JoshDrinksPort Port wine should perhaps be added -- A Trollope
Another improvement for using styro shippers is to insert crumpled newspaper in the bottom and top of each bottle's bin to help absorb shocks and prevent the bottles from breaking out the top (or more usually, the bottom). If the bottles are loose in their bins, then wrap them in sufficient newspaper to prevent them from rattling around.
I would recommend a styro shipper in a cardboard box.
When you get to the airport have it shrink-wrapped for almost £zero$ and have them put FRAGILE tape around it. Then take it to the out-sized luggage desk to check it in. None of this will make any real difference but it will only really cost you time and will make you feel as though you tried as hard as you could to stop those tw***s playing footie with it in the baggage room.
"The first duty of Port is to be red" Ernest H. Cockburn
The best way to insure that your baggage is handled properly is to insure it, but that can be expensive. Plus it also makes it more difficult to argue with customs about the value of the contents.
Marking it "fragile" makes it a target. Having them mark it "insured" means that the airline will have to cough up cash if they break it, so they seem to be much more careful about handling it.
For $200 Lexington Luggage will convert any suitcase into a bottle carrier. They will cut foam-rubber to fit, with holes as you require — whether for bottles, glasses, cameras or musical instruments. My old sturdy samsonite suitcase, hated by the boss, is likely to become a bottle carrier (if it can hold enough bottles, which I will check tomorrow).
jdaw1 wrote:For $200 Lexington Luggage will convert any suitcase into a bottle carrier. They will cut foam-rubber to fit, with holes as you require — whether for bottles, glasses, cameras or musical instruments. My old sturdy samsonite suitcase, hated by the boss, is likely to become a bottle carrier (if it can hold enough bottles, which I will check tomorrow).
fyi there's a 51 pound limit on all luggages.
Disclosure: Distributor of Quevedo wines and Quinta do Gomariz
A standard 12 bottle styro shipper filled with 12 bottles of Port is under the limit.
Those luggage type wine carriers are VERY heavy and for the popular one that Roy also has (forget the name) you can only get to about 7-8 bottles before you go over the weight limit. And if you do go over, stand by. Last year I asked and it was a 90 euros penalty for going over.
Trust me when I say, just get the 12 bottle stryo shipper here in the states and take it with you. It is the easiest way to safely transport your wine in. They are all but impossible to find once you get to Oporto.
Allow 1.5kg per bottle (being 0.75kg for the liquid and 0.75kg for the bottle). At 2.24 pounds to the kg that is about 3.4lbs per bottle. My suitcases weigh about 3.5kg when empty.
But I do endorse Andy's suggestion with a slight variation. Get two 6 packs that are identically sized. You can then tape them together or not as you wish. How heavy was the parcel you carried over to the US last February? If I recall correctly, that was two 6 packs with 12 bottles.
Top 2025: Quevedo 1972 Colheita, b.2024. Just as good as Niepoort 1900!
2026: DR Very Old White, Graham Stone Terraces 2011, Quevedo Branco 1986 b.2026
If you're only able to take along a small amount of bottles (like me), I can recommend Wineskin, a bottle-shaped bubblewrap. We had two bottles in each suitcase when we returned from holiday and it worked fine (bottles were of course packed in the middle of the suitcase, surrounded by soft clothes...)
‟We are moving towards an intelligence and risk-based approach to how we screen,” Napolitano told Mike Allen during a morning forum at the Newseum. ‟I think one of the first things you will see over time is the ability to keep your shoes on. One of the last things you will [see] is the reduction or limitation on liquids.”
!
She said research and development efforts on the shoe front are progressing, but technology to perform a quick scan that can distinguish harmless liquids from explosives isn’t there yet.
Politico wrote:She said research and development efforts on the shoe front are progressing, but technology to perform a quick scan that can distinguish harmless liquids from explosives isn’t there yet.
Politico wrote:She said research and development efforts on the shoe front are progressing, but technology to perform a quick scan that can distinguish harmless liquids from explosives isn’t there yet.
Like tasting it?
Heavens! Only if it's been properly decanted first!
Top 2025: Quevedo 1972 Colheita, b.2024. Just as good as Niepoort 1900!
2026: DR Very Old White, Graham Stone Terraces 2011, Quevedo Branco 1986 b.2026
screen-printed onto them.)
Port wine should perhaps be added -- A Trollope
" - that should work.
