Shipping wine from Europe?

C

Cristian Dezso

Cristian Dezso
I bought a case of older wine from Germany and I am trying to figure out if it is possible and how to ship it to DC. If anyone has experience with this, I would appreciate the suggestions.

Cristian
 
originally posted by Cristian Dezso:
Shipping wine from Europe?I bought a case of older wine from Germany and I am trying to figure out if it is possible and how to ship it to DC. If anyone has experience with this, I would appreciate the suggestions.

Cristian
Click to expand...

For a single case it will be tough. The best is to wait for November or January, when flights are really cheap, go over and pick it up and buy some more along the way.

I just shipped many cases in a container of inherited goods. Lots of paperwork and stupid questions, but it ended up here.

I remember reading about a few brokers who do this, but I think it was around 100$ a case so I did not follow up.
 
If you were shipping say 50 cases, there would be numbers of economically reasonable ways to do this. For one case, you could google Adventures in Wine. It will probably cost upwards of $150. That's less than a European vacation. But if you are planning to take one, that would be a better way to go.
 
I just returned from a vacation there. The issue with bringing it back is two-fold: I have to declare it at customs, and do some paperwork etc.; paying for them in Germany means a 19% VAT which is a lot more than the service you just mentioned.

Thanks for suggesting Adventures, I will contact them and see how it works.
 
originally posted by Cristian Dezso:
I just returned from a vacation there. The issue with bringing it back is two-fold: I have to declare it at customs, and do some paperwork etc.; paying for them in Germany means a 19% VAT which is a lot more than the service you just mentioned.

Thanks for suggesting Adventures, I will contact them and see how it works.
Click to expand...

I bring home a case every time I come back and declare it at customs. Once every three or four times, they make me pay the tax which is something under 5 bucks. VAT is another issue. I didn't know you could avoid that unless you were an importer.
 
Well, my understanding is that whatever products you buy from Europe, if you ship them directly to the US, some sellers/stores will not charge the VAT. Otoh, if you buy the goods in Europe and come home with them, then you can get a form from the store and mail it back to Europe and reclaim the VAT - if the purchases are above some amount (EUR 200?) and made in the same store. So maybe I should have gone this route, but I thought it was a little complicated. I would have had the wine shipped to Romania, and there, as one might expect, and as I actually experienced with some other goods on my way back, I had to almost scream at them and it took me almost an hour to convince them to stamp that form, after they kept finding reasons why they should not do it.
 
originally posted by Cliff:
I have gotten producers to forego the VAT, but it's not so easy.
Click to expand...

You'll have to tell me how to do that some time. When I have asked, they do not seem at all set up to do what retail stores do with some ease in giving you a form to get the tax reimbursed.
 
originally posted by Cliff:
I've written a French check, which they did not deposit (b/c the paperwork went through).
Click to expand...

You mean you wrote a check only for the VAT? And then you did all the paperwork yourself? How does one do that? In stores, they give one a form to fill out.
 
I think I had the forms, showed them my plane tickets, and wrote the check for them to deposit if something went wrong. The paperwork was pretty straightforward. It did involve an interesting interview with the customs agent at Marignanne who gave me a long lecture about Monica Lewinsky.
 
If the wine is really expensive, then it definitely would make sense to ship through a broker, and that should indeed remove the VAT.

As for VAT reimbursement when flying home, I am pretty sure VAT on wine (and food) cannot be reimbursed. Otherwise I would have thrown away a lot of money over the years...
If VAT is reimbursable on wine , the way it works (if you do not shop somewhere connected to those Duty Free companies), you get the receipt stamped at airport customs, then send it to the retailer. Advantage is that you get the full amount back (in contrast to the Duty Free companies), but certainly more work and many retailers are hesitant to do it.

As for US customs, our local guys in Boston are very generous. I typically arrive with two or three cases and they pretty much always wave me through. On two occasions they did not, but then stopped after 20 minutes and finding out they would only get $5.70.
The only airport I was ever charged the 5$ was IAD from what I remember. And that took just 5 minutes.
 
originally posted by georg lauer:

As for VAT reimbursement when flying home, I am pretty sure VAT on wine (and food) cannot be reimbursed. Otherwise I would have thrown away a lot of money over the years...
Click to expand...

I take that back. Cannot find any rule like that anymore. I will go in September and will try to get tax back.
 
originally posted by georg lauer:
If the wine is really expensive, then it definitely would make sense to ship through a broker, and that should indeed remove the VAT.

As for VAT reimbursement when flying home, I am pretty sure VAT on wine (and food) cannot be reimbursed. Otherwise I would have thrown away a lot of money over the years...
If VAT is reimbursable on wine , the way it works (if you do not shop somewhere connected to those Duty Free companies), you get the receipt stamped at airport customs, then send it to the retailer. Advantage is that you get the full amount back (in contrast to the Duty Free companies), but certainly more work and many retailers are hesitant to do it.

As for US customs, our local guys in Boston are very generous. I typically arrive with two or three cases and they pretty much always wave me through. On two occasions they did not, but then stopped after 20 minutes and finding out they would only get $5.70.
The only airport I was ever charged the 5$ was IAD from what I remember. And that took just 5 minutes.
Click to expand...

Alas, IAD is the airport I usually go through. It seems the VA wine industry asks them to be more attentive. They've sort of stopped because the only real discouragement is the time it takes to go through the extra line and wait for them to figure out the tax (which usually takes some time consulting numbers of books)and that's as much an inconvenience to them as to you.
 
I have often declared a case at JFK, and I have never been charged.

I once declared a case or so flying into Mexico, and the customs person decided it was so much trouble to bill me that she made me tear up my form and submit another that didn't declare the wine.
 
Only trouble I've ever had was coming out of Switzerland - Basel Airport - which as some may know is barely in Switzerland, even with a "French side" and a "Swiss side" with seperate car rental and flight check-in counters.

In any event, the issues seemed to be whether I had paid Swiss duty to bring the wine into Switzerland and whether I had a Swiss wine export license. After much discussion, I was allowed to pass.
 
Two and a half years ago I brought two cases of wine into JFK from France. The customs guy asked me what it was and I told him wine, some of which I brought over to France and never got around to drinking (which was the truth) and he just waived me through.
 
My one visit to the Customs agent resulted in about 10 minutes of standing around and about 5 minutes of him lecturing me how the value of the wine should have been declared in euros, not dollars. Then he waved me through.
 
Spoke with the person at Adventures in Wine:
- best if the seller can ship straight to your address (but it has to be a business not a home), rather than shipping it to Adventures' warehouse in France; in my case it can and the cost is about EUR80 or so
- for the importing service that Adventures provides there is a $25 per case charge, but a minimum of $75, so best to ship at least 2-3 cases
- then there is an extra $25-$35 for some service that DHL charging
- and I guess a small duty or something

So it is not too bad if you have it shipped to you. If you ship it to the french warehouse and then from the warehouse to california - the cost is prohibitive, I guess north of $400 per case. Obviously lower if you have more cases, but still.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top