Ship wine to Maryland?

[David from Switzerland]

Hello everyone!

Curious: can I (as a foreigner from overseas) send (by mail, i.e. USPS) a Baltimore resident a single bottle of wine as a present?

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
_________________

J'ai g“ché vingt ans de mes plus belles années au billard. Si c'était à refaire, je recommencerais.“ Roger Conti

 

[MLipton]

David,
Of course you can... so long as no one knows that it is wine that you're sending! Seriously, it is most difficult to do that going through official channels. Your shipment would need duty paid on it as you are exporting a wine into the US. I also recall (perhaps incorrectly) that Maryland has very restrictive laws about the importation of wine into the state. If it can be done at all, you would be wisest to go through a local retailer who can ship to the US and fill out the requisite paperwork.

My advice is to disguise the bottle by placing it into a standard shipper which is then placed into another carton that isn't readily identified as a wine shipper. Then send it as you would any other parcel, identifying the contents (if you must) as olive oil or vinegar.

Good luck!
Mark Lipton

 

[Jay Miller]

I know Maryland has relaxed their wine laws a bit very recently - as of this year it is no longer illegal for restaurants to allow people to BYOW. I don't know if they also relaxed their bizarre importation laws.

 

[Cory Cartwright]

They haven't. DC, on the other hand, is a breeze. Or just do what everyone from overseas does...

 

[Unknown]

I think you can now ship there if you are a winery.

 

[Ian Fitzsimmons]

Find a friend who's traveling to NY or DC; or buy the wine via internet in the US and have it shipped domestically.

 

[Bruce K]

originally posted by Jay Miller:
I know Maryland has relaxed their wine laws a bit very recently - as of this year it is no longer illegal for restaurants to allow people to BYOW. I don't know if they also relaxed their bizarre importation laws.

Maryland now allows direct sales by out-of-state wineries to residents (it used to be a felony). It took years upon years of repeated efforts (led by my very own state senator) to overcome NRA-style opposition from the distributors' lobby. The law is far from perfect -- it requires more hoop-jumping than some smaller wineries want to deal with -- but it's still a vast improvement over the old prohibition-relic regime. And for what it's worth, I've been able to receive shipments from five different sources over the past two months without any problems.

 

[Cole Kendall]

If your friend passes through DC from time to time, I am sure a DC resident (such as me) would be happy to take a shipment and pass it on when your friend would be in DC.

 

[Jay Winton]

I have wine delivered to me in Maryland by both UPS and Fedex with no issues. Most of my retailers will ship either there or Delaware or both. Wine Library is the only one I recall that won't ship to either state.