I’m currently studying in France, and I would like to bring some wine back to the US when I leave in December. I’m 20, so I’m allowed to buy alcohol here, but not in the US. Am I allowed to bring two unopened bottles of wine back to the US? Do I have to put them in checked bags, or can I carry them on?
You will not get passed an airport check. No liquid whatsoever.
IIRC, the ban is only for carry-on luggage, ne’st pas? You should be able to check them just fine. If you purchase them from airport duty free (inside security zone) then you can similarly bring them on.
I can’t answer for your legal right to bring them past US Customs, though. In the several 50 states, laws are different – is possession of an unopened, sealed bottle illegal in the state that you’re clearing customs at?
Practical experience, though, is that you pass US Immigration with your passport, then put your passport away, pick up your goods, stand in line for Customs, hand the officer your customs declaration, and answer, “you, too” when he or she says to have a nice day. If you’re bringing back so much stuff, though, that you have declarable items, a little more attention will likely be paid to you as you pay the duties. The worst that would probably happen is that they take your wine away from you, but as long as you’ve declared it on the customs form, they’d not really have much reason to give you a hard time. Well, as long as you’re not a foreigner or a jackass. 
I think most wine stores in france should sell special carry containers designed to be put into shipped luggage so that should be fine. I don’t know about the age issue.
Come to think of it, I lugged 2 bottles of Australian wine into and out of the US 4 times when I was 20 (going through the US to Canada) and I didn’t even think about how I was underage. Luckily, nobody at customs bothered checking.
I’m spending next semester in Spain, and I was wondering the same thing. I’ll be 20 when I come back. I wasn’t going to try getting it into my carry-on bag, but was wondering if a duty-free store would be okay. I think the best bet would probably be checked luggage, however, since that is never looked at while you’re around, so they don’t really notice if you’re underage with alcohol. Any packing suggestions? I know they can be kind of rough with the bags.
Nope. First, the liquid restriction is not worldwide, and where it is enforced it applies only to carry-on luggage. We brought back two bottles of wine from France in August, just about three or four weeks after the incident in England that triggered the liquid restriction. The wine shop put them in a cardboard box with some packing material and it went into checked baggage.
Customs says that children and infants do not have an exemption for an amount of alcoholic beverages but does not say what age they consider for adulthood.
I would say that if the drinking age in the jurisdiction where you will be clearing customs is 21, a long flight could cause you to develop a case of selective amnesia, although I would not recommend anything illegal like not declaring taxable goods, especially since Customs never actually inspects your suitcases unless you act extremely suspicious or a dog smells explosives. People slipping in a couple of bottles of wine are not their biggest problem.
No.
Per US Customs:
**• One liter of wine, beer, or liquor if you are at least 21 years old. **
Does that mean you can’t bring alcohol in at all or that you have to pay duty on it? What if you’re flying into Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands where the drinking age is only 18?
I have carried two bottles of wine in my checked luggage – on two Canadian domestic flights, so I can’t give any information about customs – and all I did was put them in the box that the winery gave me, with some newspaper as packing material to ensure that they don’t hit each other. I didn’t get any unpleasant surprise.
At the age of 17, returning from France to the US I brought along two bottles of liqueur, about a liter and a half altogether. Drinking age in Michigan - where I re-entered the US - was 21 at the time. I told the nice custome people about it up front, it being in my carry-on at the time, and mentioned how they were gifts from the family I stayed with. They let me keep both.
The 18 year old guy with our group who had 20 bottles in his luggage got his confiscated.
I should also point out this was also over 25 years ago. YMMV.
An issue you may need to address is that two wine bottles is kind of heavy; your luggage may not meet the weight restrictions for carry-on luggage. That’s what happened to me when I flew back from Amsterdam in 2004; two bottles of wine and a pound and a half of Belgian chocolate put me over the weight restriction, so I had to check my bag. I just wrapped the bottles with sweaters and they were fine. Unfortunately…when I had the wine a few months later on my birthday, I hated it.
The chocolate was delicious though, and I don’t even really like chocolate.
Ugh. ARE kind of heavy.
Mail it. Pack it carefully in a cardboard box surrounded by some kind of cushioning material and mail it back to the States. That way you don’t have to worry about the legalities.
A 20 y.o. friend had wine seized by customs coming from France because she was legally too young to drink in the U.S. As others have mentioned, you’re better off DHLing it.
Make sure you ask a French wine expert which wine came in sixth place after five other wines from California in a blind taste test. (All the tasters were French.)
So stay away from the Batard-Montracet '73. It just has no nose. Find the one that came in sixth place.
If you do decide to take a chance on putting the bottles in your checked bags (the liquid restrictions in carry-ons are being enforced in Europe and Canada), just make sure you put them in a plastic bag, tape the bag shut, then wrap in clothing. Unless you’re into purple clothing.
I’m going to be flying to Minneapolis, MN. I’m not sure if that affects anything or not. I’m worried that mailing it would be quite expensive, so if it’s possible to bring it in checked luggage I would prefer that.
that’s the only way.
Silly question - What kind of wine is this that you can’t get a friend to buy for you locally at BevMo and avoid the whole issue of how to (literally speaking) smuggle it into the US?
FWIW, I think the one-liter restriction is a bit extreme, and in my book, you’re close enough to 21 to be able to responsibly enjoy a glass of wine. But, US Customs is not an entity I’d want to argue with.
At age 17 I flew back into the US from a trip to Europe, with a bottle of Italian Il Cheapi in my suitcase. The customs official would not let me keep it. Fortunately, it had only cost me the equivalent of around $4.
Mail it to your mom, with explicit instructions not to drink it herself!