Airline Woes Equal Wine Worries

Filed in archive Wine News on August 14, 2006

Reading through the news the last few days concerning the horrific event that was averted and the new restrictions for air travel, I was also shocked to read about how some passengers were forced to leave their wine abandoned in air ports (along with a slew of other liquid items). Could you imagine going on vacation, having some fabulous wine to bring home from the winery or wineries you visited, only to have to leave it by a garbage can in an airport? Of course, given advanced warning, it is possible to check it as luggage (maybe to see it again or maybe not) or better yet, have it shipped home.

Many wineries are now working to help out customers to do just that. Here's more about the issue from Wine industry deals with inconvenience of new air rules:

In winery tasting rooms, the restrictions were a hot topic.

"Everybody's talking about it," said Michaela Baltasar, spokeswoman for the Clos Du Val winery in Napa.

Like other wineries, Clos Du Val was advising customers to have wine shipped home. Direct shipping has become easier since the Supreme Court ruling in 2005, opening the door to more shipping of wines, although there are still some states that ban direct shipments.

Opening all states to such winery-to-consumer shipments would help ease the impact of the new security restrictions, said David Lucas, owner and winemaker at The Lucas Winery in Lodi.

"We really need to get that cleaned up and working forward so we can ship wine and so people don't have to carry it on," said Lucas, who was a party to the suit involved in the Supreme Court decision.

He expects airport security to have a limited effect on his winery.

"Will I go out of business? No. It's not that kind of impact," Lucas said. "There'll be an added cost and an added inconvenience, because we just have some many people coming to Lodi now from other parts of the state and other parts of the country."

Sturdy cardboard-and-foam shipping containers for wine are readily available, said Mike Phillips, co-owner and winemaker of Michael-David Vineyards, also in Lodi.

"The wine is perfectly safe no matter who handles it," he said.