Skip to main content Tips on Shipping Wine Home From Sonoma County Francis Ford Coppola Winery in Geyserville is one of more than 400 Sonoma County wineries, where you can buy wine to ship home. Back To The Top Get the FREE Visitors Guide and Wine Map Discover Things to Do Browse Wineries & Wine Find Hotels & Lodging andOooh... a juicy one. This answer is going to deal largely with a consumer oriented approach. As a wholesaler/re-seller/winery with volume, we have some more options that include refrigerated, consolidated shipping. But those options are expensive and often times don't mitigate a lot of the risks outlined below. If you have questions specifically related to shipping as a winery, I can answer those too. But if you're a normal person, and you want to get a package of wine shipped from Point A to Point B, this is what you need to read.The best methods for shipping wine are weather/season/destination/distance dependent. Wine is extremely temperature sensitive, and that must be accounted for in the shipping process.

There is no way around this. Take the risks of shipping wine very seriously: heat damage is permanent and it makes me, the winery, look bad, even if it was your fault that it got heat damaged.If you want an easy answer to remember that will always work just fine no matter where in the world the package is coming from or going to and when, and you don't mind forking over cash, then the answer is packed safely in recycled cardboard pulp shipping, and shipped FedEx overnight Priority delivery with signature.But let's go over each facet of this and you'll see that you don't always need to fork over the ridiculous overnight fee.Recycled pulp wine shippers are by far the most economically and environmentally friendly way to ship wine. They're not expensive, they're reusable, and they do a very good job. So do the plastic air bubble ones, too, but those are expensive and not entirely designed for parcel shipping. These are not totally bomb-proof, but unless your FedEx guy Ace Venturas this package down the hall, you should be just fine.

What not to do, FedEx guy. You want to use FedEx. I know, I know, the UPS guy is friendlier, and he gives my dog treats. But there is a significant difference in the way they treat signature packages. UPS will often leave signature-required alcohol packages on a front doorstep or stoop when the package recipient is not home. This is illegal, but they figure they're doing the recipient and the shipper a favor. Newsflash: They're not doing anyone a favor except themselves. best wine glass cleanerBecause when wine sits outside, even on a mild day, it's probably getting exposed to direct heat, direct sunlight, direct cold, direct snow, direct dog territory marking, etc. top wine countries 2014This is why you ask for signature, so that the package will not get left out exposed to the elements. how early can you buy wine in va

UPS drivers are okay with breaking the law with this because if they were to get caught, UPS takes the hit, not the individual driver. FedEx, however, has a different type of contract with their drivers where the driver is responsible for these kinds of infractions. because of that, FedEx drivers don't leave packages that require signature out and about just because they're friendly with the recipient. Now, if you're a private party shipping to another private party, I'm not sure whether or not you can get the package tagged as alcohol. best wine shop in west los angelesIf you can, this is a good thing, because that is when they become 100% strict about not leaving the package on a doorstep.wine on tap systemSimilarly, you want to try to ship to a business address, so that you know the person or a co-worker will be there to accept the package and keep it from having to sit on the delivery truck the rest of the day or another whole day for a second delivery attempt. red wine case iphone 5

The only time to ship to a residential address is if you know the person will be there for sure, or in the completely trans-continental situation I laid below.If you have a strong preference for UPS, though, and you're shipping to a business address, you're probably fine seeing what Brown can do for you.If this is a pretty irreplaceable bottle of wine, then you probably want to get insurance, too. But, regardless, use this process of elimination to see exactly what method of shipping will work while mitigating as much risk as possible for your money. best wine shops californiaOnce again, though, if you have the dollars to just ship priority overnight every time, that is the safest bet. top 10 wine regions of the worldYou don't have to do that to have 99% good results, though. best place to buy wine in europe

See below:If it's summer anywhere along your shipping route from origin to destination, or even a particularly warm spring or fall, you do not want to ship ground.If it's straight up hot anywhere along your shipping route, you want to ship some form of Express.If it's hot everywhere on your shipping route, you want overnight shipping.If it's hot or even really warm at your shipping destination, and you're already shipping overnight, you want to get priority delivery so that the package spends as little time in the non-temperature controlled delivery vehicle as possible.But, if the temperature and weather at your shipping origin and shipping destination are mild, but the route in between currently isn't mild, then you can ship 3 Day Express Saver.If the temperature and weather at origin, destination, and the rail route in between is all mild, then you can ship Ground, and save a whole lot of money.REALLY IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDLESS OF SHIPPING METHOD:Depending on estimated in-transit time, you want to avoid the package being at the origin distribution center or the destination distribution center over the weekend.

A lot of shipping warehouses are not air conditioned over the weekend. Even worse: If the package was loaded onto the truck before the weekend was over, but the truck didn't make it back out again, then it's sitting in a wonderfully warm little oven all weekend. You should time your shipping so that the package is delivered before a weekend, or is in cross country transit over a weekend. This is another reason to pick FedEx... they do residential delivery on Saturdays, so you get an extra day of the week to get a residential package delivered, if that's you're only shipping option. The only time this becomes a concern is if you're going completely trans-continental on FedEx Ground. A good portion of the east coast is still Friday deliver from Monday shipping in California, but some is Saturday/Monday deliver from Monday shipping. If this is the case, you might just want to pony up and pay for 3 Day Express Saver to make sure it's delivered by Friday, or make sure they'll be at their residence on Saturday to accept the package.