Bring back wine from France?

It's a total crapshoot. I've spent hours reading about the possibilities and have come to no firm conclusions whatsoever. I went to France with a friend earlier this year. We ended up with about 7 bottles of wine (one a magnum). We bought a hard sided suitcase in France and packed all the wine in it along with our jackets and dirty laundry for padding.

Legally and with no duty - you can bring back 1 bottle per person. We declared that we had wine - no specifics. You have to declare everything. You'll have a much bigger problem not declaring it and having customs find it than any problem you could have once it is declared. Customs was significantly more concerned with the food we had (canned foie gras, cookies, chocolate, etc.) than with the wine. They saw it and ignored it and we walked away.

They could have taxed us, which shouldn't be too much money, or even taken it away. Note: you may also be dealing with state laws as well as Federal when bringing liquor in.

As many posters suggested - you might be better off buying the wine in the US. If it is something rare that is not available in the US, go for it. Otherwise, you'll probably find it for the same price, or even cheaper here. In France, you are getting that awful exchange rate for the dollar. Many French winemakers have had to bite the bullet and sell their wines to the US in dollars or else totally lose the business, so American stores could be a bargain for you.

Example - the bottles of Hermitage we bought (f*&#@ing expensive stuff) ended up being the same price here in the US - and we wouldn't have had to be panicky about getting them back. However, the magnum of Pegau Chateuneuf-du-Pape would have been impossible to even find in the US without paying twice what we paid.

Be sure to put it in your checked baggage. (Unless you've bought it duty-free at the airport.)

I made the mistake of trying to bring a bottle back from Germany last year. Some airport worker got a nice treat.

You can bring back as much as you want,all you have to do is declare it and pay the taxes.I think I paid about a dollar per bottle a few years back.

You could just order from the net...all you pay is shipping fees. There are many many stores locally that have french wines, but you can order from the net.

good luck, customs is much more harder than it used to be.

you may lose your package.

order online or ask the people where you wanted to get it from and talk about international shipment via airmail instead.