Sunday, September 16, 2007

Wine on Planes

Due to increased security in airports, it has become much more difficult to take wine home with you. You can no longer carry it onto the plane with you. It must be checked as luggage. This does make matters more burdensome.

This becomes even harder when traveling overseas. At least domestically, you might be able to ship wine for a relatively reasonable cost. But when I soon go to Spain it will be very expensive to ship wine back home. It might cost $200-$300 to ship a case. If I want to bring wine back, I have to check it as luggage, which limits the amount I can bring home.

Though things may be changing, at least a bit and at least domestically. You now can carry some wine onto the plane with you. Though it is very limited and I will explain.

Vino Volo is a new chain of wine stores located at several U.S. airports. Currently they are located in Seattle, Sacramento, New York City, Baltimore and Washington D.C. More stores will open in the near future as well. Each store is also a bar and lounge.

What is most interesting is that these stores are located past the security checkpoints. Thus, you can legally buy wine and carry it aboard with you. This would allow you hopefully to buy local wines and more conveniently take it onto the plane with you.

Vino Volo also sells wine online, though only to a limited amount of states. They even have their own wine club. There is only a limited amount of wines listed on their website. Prices seem a little bit above average.

It certainly would be good to see more wine stores like this at the airports, thus making it easy to transport wine.

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