Wine

You’re feeling relaxed and refreshed having just returned from a fantastic vacation filled with beautiful sights, delectable food, and incredible wine. You go to unpack your suitcase only to find that its contents have been tinted a deep shade of red due to the broken bottle or two that you had tried to unsuccessfully bring back home with you. Talk about a buzzkill.

Here are a few tips on how to effectively pack wine and to help avoid those unfortunate situations of broken bottles on the flight home:

• Use wine-specific packing materials.  The Wine Mummy and similar products are specifically created to carefully transport wine or other alcoholic bottles in checked bags. Most have a layer of bubble wrap to help cushion the bottle.  We would also recommend using one that has either a zipper seal similar to a seal on a sandwich bag, or if it is a one-time use wine bottle protector, one that has an adhesive seal so that if the bottle does break, it doesn’t get all over your clothes.
• Line the outside perimeters of your bag with soft clothing for additional padding. You should basically create a “nest” for your wine bottles and then pack the wine in the middle of the cushioning.
• Use a hard-sided suitcase rather than a canvas one.  Baggage handlers are trying to load and unload planes as quickly as possible and are most likely not thinking about what you have packed in your suitcase.  Having a hard-sided suitcase will provide a little extra protection for when your luggage gets tossed around.
• Purchase a wine-specific checked bag. If you’re planning on bringing home more than a few bottles of wine, you might consider purchasing wine-specific luggage, such as The Wine Check.  This type of bag includes a wine shipper box that is enclosed in a padded case.

Next time you’re either traveling to a wine region or you want to bring wine with you to your destination, plan ahead.  It will save you the heartache, the wine, and the dry cleaning bill from a broken bottle.