Why don't you buy your wine directly in Europe > Wine Forums - THE Wine Forum

Home

Help

Sunday, September 07, 2008

You are here : Wine Forums

VinoCellar.com Wine Forums

Subject: Why don't you buy your wine directly in Europe

You are not authorized to post a reply.

Author

Messages

norwin

Grape Picker
Posts:5

03/29/2008 12:35 PM
i am living in Belgium and see the prices in usa are much higher for wine as in europe. So i was wondering why usa people don't buy there wine more directly from france. Norwin

David Spriggs User is Offline

Grape Sorter
Posts:311

03/29/2008 1:58 PM
I have done this. It's not a trivial exercise and is expensive. The wine must go through a wine importer - someone with a government license to import wine. It must also be properly "slip labeled" with the required government warning, etc. before importation. Also, to make it worthwhile you must bring in several cases, otherwise the per bottle charge is prohibitive. I used to bring in a minimum of 10 cases at a time. And don't forget the extra costs such as currency exchange, wire fees, etc. Oh, and if there is a problem getting delivery from the seller in Europe it is a major pain to try and resolve it. It used to be a lot more feasible when the dollar was actually worth something. I preferred buying from the UK out of bonded storage to avoid all VAT issues and tried to source the wines Duty Free. -Dave-

norwin

Grape Picker
Posts:5

03/29/2008 2:21 PM
so, time to setup a decent sollution for group buying by different members. i am sure a lot of wine lover would like to import directly. So there must be a possibilty to find a groups sollution. Importing from france to Belgium is also expensive. But with about 100 people togheter we're buying a full container and device it here local in different parts. Maybe that can be intresting. Norwin europe

Dave

Wine Thief
Posts:2899

03/29/2008 9:16 PM
Norwin, thanks for your message and great idea! We actually do have a large group (not confined to the US) that buys barrels of Burgundy at auction and finds a producer willing to handle the elevage. Right now the 2005s are resting in Bouchard's cellars while they sort through the shipping issues.

You are not authorized to post a reply.