If you have a friend or family member who loves wine, but lives in another state, you may be inclined to ship some over to him or her as a gift. But sending that bottle of Zinfandel across the country isn’t so straightforward. Wine laws vary greatly from place to place, with some states banning alcohol shipping to consumers. Here’s what you need to know about shipping a wine gift. No states technically allow shipping between two individuals. “You can’t do it through the U.S. Postal Service, while FedEx and UPS say you must be a certified shipper,” says Jenny Benzie, an advanced sommelier and wine consultant who owns retail shop Épernay Wine & Spirits in Nantucket, Massachusetts. She adds that in most states, there are different restrictions depending on who is shipping (a winery vs. retailer) and whether it’s going in-state or out of state. Jessyca Frederick, founder of WineClubReviews.net, says there are around 30 “Common Carrier” states. “These are the places where FedEx doesn’t have to worry about licensing issues and will happily deliver booze,” she says.

This means most retailers and wineries are willing to ship their goods to consumers in those states. copy and paste the following snippet into your site But other states are trickier and have a multitude of restrictions, requiring certain licenses for those who want to ship wine. Some consumers in restrictive states find a third-party licensed wine shipper to skirt around the rules, but this takes some extra time and effort. For this to work, you’d have to call a winery, have them send the wine to a third-party shipper and then have the third party ship it to you. This entails finding a shipper that will work with you and a potential delay in your gift’s delivery due to the extra shipping step. Let us help you find the best deals. Some states, like Utah, are completely closed to receiving wine shipments for consumers. South Dakota, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania are technically closed to consumer shipments, but some wine clubs have licensing arrangements in those states with distributors that allow consumers to receive wine.

But considering all of the trouble you’d have to go through to ship your gift, you may want to buy the recipient in one of these states a gift card to an alcohol retailer in their area if possible. Even the states that allow shipping from almost anywhere often have quantity limits. For example, in Arizona, you can only order from wineries of a certain size, and consumers can only order two cases of wine per year. For the most accurate information, you’d have to look up each state’s laws. But The Wine Institute, a public policy advocacy group, is a great resource for understanding each state’s rules. , which stays up-to-date with the ever-changing wine laws. Here are some strategies experts recommend to make it easier to get wine shipped where it needs to go (of course, with the exception of the states with strict laws listed above): Order directly from a winery (ideally in the same state). If your recipient loves a certain wine, call the winery directly to see if they can ship to them.

If they can’t, call a winery in the person’s home state to see if they can send over the same or a similar type of wine. Use an online wine retailer. “There’s a huge amount of states that allow you to order online and get wine shipped to you, and most retailers are willing to ship almost anywhere,” says Keith Wallace, a sommelier who teaches wine shipping law at Drexel University and Wine School of Philadelphia. buy wine online international shippingHe adds that their prices are also usually better than going through wineries.best dry red wine for gift Wallace recommends the following retailers for offering great prices and shipping to many states: Wine Woot!, Wine Library, WTSO and Wine Access.best cheap wine for pizza

Wine clubs make it easy for consumers to deliver a gift directly to family members or friends, says Adria Jover, CEO of online wine club Glassful. He says Glassful has the permits to ship to most states and market access that many retailers don’t have, making it likely that his or a similar wine club will be able to ship to your destination when a winery can’t.best wine for new years eve Consider that a wine club isn’t necessarily going to save you money, as Jover says wine clubs like his don’t aim to offer high discounts, but rather quality products. buy wine baskets onlineBut they are suitable if you don’t know much about wine or want an easy way to ship wine somewhere else in the country.wine bars dc metro area If the wine clubs you are looking at don’t clearly indicate which states they ship to on a shipping policy or FAQ page, consider using a site like Frederick’s WineClubReviews.net that clearly lists which clubs ship to which states.

It may take a little trial and error, but if you don’t live in one of the states with heavy restrictions, there should be a way to get your gift delivered. Wine glass image via Shutterstock.Oooh... 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. Because 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. This is why you ask for signature, so that the package will not get left out exposed to the elements. 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.

If you can, this is a good thing, because that is when they become 100% strict about not leaving the package on a doorstep.Similarly, 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. 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. Once again, though, if you have the dollars to just ship priority overnight every time, that is the safest bet.

You don't have to do that to have 99% good results, though. 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.