Brian S. Paskin wrote:
> Hi, I have read problems of sending wine to the US, but I want to do
> the reverse and send my friends in Italy, Germany and Norway some wines
> that I have found here in New England. The major carriers and USPS
> said that they will not touch the stuff from me, as I am not an
> authorized distributor. Any ideas about sending wine overseas?

Shipping wine or spirits to or from the US can be complicated, and
especially so now that there is much increased air security. Even
before present security concerns, I knew a lady who owned a
wine-liquor store in the US. Many years ago she bought much wine for
her personal use at auction in London. She had all sorts of problems
getting the wine shipped to her in the US. Finally a wine importer that
she knew arranged to import the wine for her, and he did not charge her
much because her store sold many of the wines he imported.

If you ship by ground-sea, you must carefully select the right time of
the year to avoid damage to the wine unless you can arrange for
shipment in a temperature regulated container. Shipping by air is now
very expensive, especially for an individual who can not arrange a
contract with a major shipping service. As an example, 2 day air
express between the central US and Vienna will cost a minimum of about
US $60 for an individual, and price goes up rapidly with weight and
size of the package. In addition, there may be customs to pay. At least
for large contract users, the air express companies arrange so that
customs papers are being processed while the shipment is still in air,
and thus there usually is no delay when the shipment first enters the
country, and the receiver of the package does not have to pay any
duties - they have been prepaid. There are likely many companies who
ship overseas just now and then. I thus suspect that you may be able to
find a shipping service in a major city that can handle all of the
details, for a charge of course. However even they may not wish to
handle the complications of shipping wine or spirits. Shipping some
food items can be just as complicated, especially for raw fresh food,
due to the many different restrictions in various countries.