I'm moving! What do I do?

Hi, I'm moving from So. California to Kansas City, MO. I have about 200 bottles and 10 carboys full and aging. I've already been told that the moving company won't touch it. I plan on renting a uhaul and taking it myself. First, is this legal? Then, do you have any specific packing & transportation suggestions? What about the carboys? What about freezing temperature in-route?

Thanks, Berry

Transporting fruit juice is legal. How were you to know that it had gone "bad"? ;^)

Then, do you have any

Pack the bottles in cases for moving. If you can get some, those plastic lugs are nice for moving carboys. I'd probably put some padding around and under each carboy - both for shock and temperature protection.

What about the

Get an enclosed U-Haul trailer. You aren't going to be on the road _that_ long that the wine will freeze. A couple or 3 days should be OK. Stack everything together so that the thermal mass has less surface area exposed to the ambient cold.

Tom S

Dang! I just found out that the smallest uhaul will be $2800 to go from LA to KC. Anybody know of anything less?

B.

As I live approx 50 miles South East of K.C. I would suggest that you ship it ahead of your move so as not to hinder you in anyway straight to my house. I promise to take real good care of all of it while your moving....... .....

WHY would anyone move from some that is warm to this place that is cold/dry/unstable/unpredictable. Guess I have lived here to long as I could not imagine warm weather year round....................... and leaving it....

I await your delivery with open arms/mouth/empty glass......... oppsss....

Ben & Linda McCune HoneyCreek Vineyard/Orchards

snipped-for-privacy@honeycreek.us

Might want to look at buying a used "Cargo Trailer", pull it to the destination, and hang a "For Sale" sign on it. You might even get lucky and sell for more than you paid.

Fred

AFIK, moving the wine interstate is legal. My stance is that bottles and 10 carboys full and aging. I've already been told that

Berry - Check out what it will cost to rent a minivan. My Voyager will hold ten carboys.

Once you get to K.C. you will need a place to get your winemaking supplies. Check out Bacchus and Barleycorn. Their phone is 913-962-2501 and web site is snipped-for-privacy@bacchus-barleycorn.com. Jackie and Alberta Rager own B&B and are friends of mine and are members of the Greater Kansas City Cellarmasters. Once you get established get in touch with the Cellarmasters at

or email me. We have a great group of winemakers from all over the Kansas City area. Some make kit wines, others order California grapes through Bacchus and Barleycorn and others make wine from locally grown grapes and fruit. We even have a couple of commercial winemakers in the club.

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas

Berry,

Did the moving company themselves tell you they wouldn't touch it? Unless there's a specific issue with interstate moves -- which I doubt

-- then it sounds real fishy. At least for the bottled wine. In my limited experience, if you are moving your primary residence and these are your personal belonging then normal taxation/control issues don't apply. I moved from Oregon to Alberta (different country) and the Allied movers were fine with transporting my dozen cases of wine (mostly homemade) as long as I had the proper paperwork from the Alberta Liquor Control Board showing that I'd paid the applicable taxes (which weren't much since they valued each bottle at < 2$). Some of the movers we talked to thought it was impossible for them to move it to Canada, but generally agreed they would when we explained to them exactly what needed to be done (nothing on their part -- just the paperwork stuff for us...)

Our experience with movers is that if they aren't sure about regulations like that, they usually pretend that they do know and tell you that it can't be done -- but if you can demonstrate that you've got them covered then they're willing. And the one we talked to who still wasn't willing didn't otherwise seem nearly professional anyhow (and no cheaper) so they weren't going to get our business no matter what...

Along similar lines, if you're paying for this move out of your own pocket, and aren't used to dealing with professional movers, then make sure you get quotes from multiple companies and let them know you're getting multiple quotes. You'll likely get entirely different quotes (as much as 50% less) than if you don't. We weren't aware of this when we moved Vancouver->Portland in 2000 and paid a LOT more than we did 2 years later to move Portland->Calgary -- which was a lot further and involved a lot more stuff!

As for what you quoted for the "smallest U-Haul" -- was that a truck or a trailer? Trailers shouldn't be anywhere near that expensive, if you have something to tow it with. In 1996 I rented a medium-sized U-Haul trailer and hitch one one-way from Regina (Saskatchewan) to Vancouver (about 1000 miles) and my recollection is that it was only a couple hundred bucks (Canadian) and I had it for a week. Trucks are a different story though.

Good Luck with the move! As for us, after 6 moves in as many years covering 4 cities, we're hoping to stay planted where we are for at least the next couple of decades :-)

Richard

Thanks for all the advice! I am going to work for General Electric in KC and the relocation counselors said that the movers would not touch the wine. Maybe the movers will.... So far the pricing that I've found is: Uhaul $2700, Budget $1400, and Upack, $900 (all for a 10' truck).

Bill, I look forward to getting to know you one day. It will take a while to settle in, but one day I will contact the cellarmasters group and get to know some local winemakers.

Berry

On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 20:56:41 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@home.com wrote: Berry,

Just a suggestion, but go elsewhere to rent it. Rental from KC to LA is only $850 so it is location and not equipmaent costing so much. San Diego to KC is $1200 for example. Try going to a smaller town within a hundred miles or so and you should save $1500 or more. Oceanside is just 70 miles down the coast but is just over $1100.

From the looks of it, take your road atlas and pick a town just outside the inset map line. With mine I see a $1300-1700 difference just by moving across the line on the map.

I moved wine from Indiana when I moved to Houston about three years ago. I actually had a project in carboys when I moved. I didn't want the moving companies to mess with any of it, so I loaded it into a moving van with my wife and pets and drove it all down here. Everything in bottles I put in old wine cases and the carboy was in a cooler(in case the bung came loose). Everything turned out OK, but I understand your pain. I didn't want cases of finished wine sitting in uncooled storage until we bought a house.

Chad Harvey

Lazy Hill Wine Log version 3.1

I am in the military and move every few years. As suggested, old wine boxes for your bottled wine will be fine. For my carboy wine, the old carboy box and some padding has worked, but I drive the stuff myself.

Chad, thanks for the program link, I'll try it out.