While shipping wine between states has its problems, shipping internationally can range from simpler than many U.S. states (e.g. Japan) to much harder (e.g., mainland China where a local importer is required to clear the wine through Customs). Here are some general tips if you find yourself wanting to ship wine internationally:
Tip #1 - Use wine retailers and storage providers who offer international shipping
Generally, to ship wine internationally from the U.S. (and even domestically), you need to be licensed. Therefore, the easiest way to ship is to buy from wine retailers who offer this capability (most don't because it's complicated and always somewhat manual of a process) or store your wine at storage facilities who are willing to make the shipping arrangements.
Tip #2 - Use DHL
We've researched the options at Vinfolio and for international wine shipments, DHL is more organized than the other primary carriers at navigating the various rules and duties in each country around the world and has greater coverage. Service is usually door-to-door by air freight.
In certain high volume shipping markets like Japan, however, there are sometimes national carriers who may be far more cost effective than DHL. See the example international shipping rates on the upper right of Vinfolio's shipping and delivery page. Japan's freight rate is about the same as air freighting a case of wine to the East Coast via Fedex because we use a Japanese carrier for shipments to Japan.
Tip #3 - Ship complete and multiple cases
Shipping wine internationally is expensive. It can easily cost $25-30 a bottle even when a case is shipped. Due to the fixed effort required in processing any item through foreign customs, there's a fixed cost for any shipment which can be amortized over more volume. Therefore, shipping less than a case almost never makes sense and some savings (up to 20% on per bottle shipping cost) may be realized by sending at least 5 cases at once.
Tip #4 - Investigate duties, taxes, and surcharges in advance to avoid surprises
Most countries charge duties and taxes for importing wine. The parameters which drive their formulae vary widely (and change periodically) so cannot be easily summarized (even for a single country much less across multiple countries). Generally, the value of the wine is a factor and carriers like DHL require a purchase invoice (or other statement of value). These duties and taxes will need to be paid by you separately to the carrier before your wine is released and are in addition to the freight charges.
For a further discussion of wine import duties, see an earlier post titled "Global factors affecting trend for higher fine wine prices."
Tip #5 - Protect your shipment
- Time your shipments to match favorable weather conditions in the destination country because you never know whether your wine will get held up in customs and sit in an non-climate-controlled warehouse for days.
- Insure your wine. While I don't have specific statistics to back up my intuition here, I believe there's greater inherent risk of theft or wine just "disappearing" along the way when it is goes to remote locations. Note that all Vinfolio shipments (whether domestic or international) automatically carry $250,000 in insurance coverage at no charge to our customers.