shipping wine in the US and Canada

I'm writing an article for a magazine about shipping home made wine in the US and Canada.

I know a lot of winemakers do this for competitions. They ship wine from their house to the judges.

Both US and Canadian postal laws forbid shipping intoxicating beverages with an alcohol content above 0.5 percent. Therefore wine shipping can only be done by parcel courriers, like FedEx, UPS, etc. Even then, they have strict regulations, insisting on licences and import permits that just about squeeze out the consumer. I know this is an issue everyone has with big government. Even so, amatuer winemakers are shipping wine to competitions. I'm interested in how this is being done legally. I'm would like to know how it's being done in a way that I can publish openly in a magazine article.

Are there technicalities amateur winemakers can use to their advantage to ship wine legally? Anyone know?

If you send your packed wine to a contest and label the box "sample material", does that recategorize the alcoholic beverage into something else?

Any experience or useable feedback on this would be appreciated.

Regards Jeff Chorniak

Most of the really onerous shipping rules have more to do with people who make wine/liquors as a business, not necessarily as a hobby, so the licenses, etc., aren't really the difficulty as you think of you're not selling what you're making. Given that, in the US the various states have rules as to whether or not shipments can come into/go out of particular states. One does have to be a little careful about how to ship, but it's not particularly different than sending, say, a case of home-canned food to someone as a gift. If you're packing it yourself, just make sure that it's not going to break.

Given that, I am aware of at least one wine magazine that has called for samples for a contest and the contest rules state to ship the bottles exactly as the "sample material" description you had below. I am also aware of people who have sent wine under the title "grape juice", "juice samples", "food", etc. - nothing incorrect, but not the complete truth.

I've only heard of one shipment ever rejected, and it had nothing to do with the government - the person who packed the shipment used some pre-constructed styrofoam bottle holders to contain the bottles in the box, and the sound of the squeaking of the styrofoam and sloshing of the wine bottles gave it away, and the FedEx person rejected taking the shipment (it was going to a state that had rules against shipping wine into it). The exact same contents, except re-packed to keep the styrofoam from squeaking, was accepted later that day by a different FedEx person, and shipped successfully. Interestingly, had that person sent the package to a different friend who lived one state over, they wouldn't have had to re-pack, since that state would've let the shipment in.

Also, I think there are now rules that if you ship alcoholic beverages to yourself, it's OK in most states, so if you can get that arranged...

Rob

ps - the above are things that I have heard; I have never done anything described above or similar myself.

Jeff Chorniak wrote:

beverages with

competitions.

advantage to

something