wine | the winegetter

Jul 07 2012

USA

I’m back with a note on U.S. customs duties for wine

In case you got here through a search engine and are wondering how much wine you can bring into the United States from anywhere in the world my answer is this: As much as you can carry. The duty free allowance is one liter, which means one bottle. But, that is only the duty free allowance which means you have to pay no import duty on that amount. The thing is that US import duties on wine are very low, under $5 per gallon, which means less than $1 per bottle. So what you do is: Take as much as you can, declare it on your customs form, tell the agent that you have something to declare, and then they will most likely wave you through (we’ve brought 12 bottles per person many times and never had to pay anything). Good luck and safe travels! If you are wondering how to pack the wine, this is my post on how I do it. (Summary of 09/23/2013)

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We’re back in the States. I am kind of embarrassed that I have not written more over the last weeks, but it just felt right to take a break and enjoy our time in Germany. The current heat wave in Ann Arbor (and that our house was without electricity for way over 30 hours upon our return) makes me miss the “German summer” with way less heat even more.

Our trip was really good, as I indicated in my last post in June. We ended up with way more wine than we had meant to acquire, but I guess that always happens to us. The last day in Germany was spent mostly scheming how to get as much wine into our luggage as possible. Turns out that we were able to bring 22 750ml bottles and 2 375ml! That is a new record for us. It makes sense, because German wine usually costs between twice and four times in the US compared to what it costs in Germany. Also, it is quite the hassle actually getting the wines because often they are only available through big wine sellers online and then you have to buy a minimum of 12 bottles plus shipping, which would completely overstep our budget. (If anyone has good alternatives, let me know!)

Scheming and packing…

A friend will bring an additional 13 bottles over the course of the next months, and 6 750ml as well as 4 375ml bottles will be waiting with my mother to make their way here.

A lot of people keep telling me that you can only bring one bottle of wine per person into the United States. That is wrong. Correct is: Your duty-free customs allowance is 1 liter of wine, which usually brings you down to 1 bottle. That is only the duty free amount. Naturally, you can bring home more. You will have to declare it and potentially have to pay customs duty on these wines. What nobody knows, and I have not been able to find the information online anywhere, is that customs duty on wine is dirt cheap. How I know? We were stopped by customs this time around.

I always declare the number of bottles I am bringing (usually 8-9) and notify the customs agent that I have wine to declare. This usually leads to them waving me through without checking. This time around, we declared our wine together (23 full bottles), and that startled them. So we had to go to a booth and talk to a customs officer. After him checking one bottle and being satisfied that it was indeed wine and not liquor, he had to check his lists for quite some time until he found out that the customs duty on wine is a whopping $3.45 (not sure about the .45, might be a bit higher) for a gallon of wine. You read right, a gallon. That is almost 5 bottles…Another customs officer explained that they have discretion on whether to collect customs duty up to $20. And since filling out the paperwork probably costs more than they can raise, they decided to waive the duty.

So, please, on your next overseas trip: Go and stock up on wine that you cannot get or want to pay reasonable prices on. It is really easy!

Tagged bottles, bring wine back, customs, customs duty, import, limit, plane, travel, United States, wine

Jun 19 2012

6 Comments

Germany, Mosel

Thoughts on the 2011 Mosel vintage

The centre of Trier with vineyards in front.

We spent last weekend in Trier and along the Mosel. We had an amazing time, and tried a lot of outstanding wines. My tastebuds are still buzzing and my tasting sheets are full of thoughts and memories that I will jot down in the next couple of weeks. This is just some first ideas on the 2011 Mosel wines.

2010 was a crazy vintage along the Mosel with very low yields, but unheard of levels of sugar and acidity at the same time. This is highly unusual because often sugar is a sign of ripe and overripe grapes with less acidity. The 2010s we tried around the same time last year were incredibly racy and vibrant and colorful. Many wine journalists wrote these wines off because they believed they were too unbalanced and not well suited for ageing. The 2010s we were able to try now showed a really nice development. They were very drinkable and to me seemed well suited for ageing. Given that it is Nina’s and my wedding year, we decided to stock up on some auslese and spätlese to store for the future.

The 2011 wines we tried at Karl Erbes winery: from Kabinett to Ice Wine.

2011 in contrast, was a year with high yields and very, very healthy grapes. These wines are picture-perfect Mosel rieslings. There is not as much going on in our glasses and mouths right now, but they are just beautiful and very promising. Nina called them subtle, I would add sophistication. They also showed great mellowness. Think of 2010 as a crazy, modern art painting and of 2011 as a well composed and pleasing piece of art.

The biggest surprise for me were the dry rieslings. German wine drinkers tend to go for dry whites, so winemakers usually make a number of them, too. I am not a big fan, because when I try these I often find myself thinking: “And now some more sugar and the fruit would come out more beautifully.” They always seem to leave something to be desired to me. The 2011 dries instead were mostly quite mild and pleasant. Without the rough acidity edges that they can carry in other years and very notably did in 2010. I was quite impressed.

Mosel Valley at Ürzig, Erdener Treppchen on the left.

We had seven tastings this weekend, 6 in wineries and one at my friend ManSoo’s over dinner. We tried wines ranging from simple Qba to ice wines. We tried old wines (down to 1987) and the wines just bottled. It was a lot, but I also realized how much I miss hanging out with winemakers and just soaking in their knowledge and stories and exchanging ideas with them…

More to come…

After a succesful day along the Mosel…

Tagged 2011, comparison mosel 2011 vs. 2010, mosel, riesling, trier, vintage, wine

May 31 2012

8 Comments

Germany, Mosel, Something about wine...

Wine friends and an exhibition in Seoul

The sloping Mosel at Bremm.
The photo was taken by Yutaka Kitajima from the Bremmer Calmont, the steepest vineyard on the Mosel.

Two of my closest wine friends are ManSoo Hwang from Korea and Yutaka Kitajima from Japan. ManSoo and Yutaka have a long friendship going that they forged during their studies as graduate students in Trier, Germany. Trier is in the heart of the Mosel valley, and Mosel as well as Saar and Ruwer (two smaller rivers) are easy to reach. Both of them fell in

My friends ManSoo (right), Chunhwa (second from right) and Yutaka (second from left) with the Korean wine journalist Son Hyun Joo

love with Mosel rieslings and over the years became tremendous experts. Yutaka has been blogging on Mosel wines for several years and has been a contributor to the Japanese wine magazine Vinotheque since 2005. ManSoo is a certified wine advisor, graduated from the German Wine and Sommelier College in Koblenz and is also a wine journalist.

Both of them have played a huge role in my developing a better feel for and understanding of riesling. Usually at ManSoo’s home we would have long wine tastings, often with Korean food (a so good pairing that it goes beyond imagination…but that will be the subject of another entry). We would each bring some bottles, and then we would do blind tastings. We would discuss the wines, we would try to place them geographically as well as age-wise and varietal. All that mattered was why we made a particular argument. It was tremendous fun. While they both share immense knowledge and experience, they were always willing to indulge me and later Nina, too. I owe a lot to these two.

Wine maker’s hands

Besides being great friends and wine lovers, they also are both exceptionally good at taking artful photographs and that is where I am heading with this post. Several of their photographs and pictures by others have made it into a (seemingly) gorgeous photo exhibition in Seoul, Korea, organized by Chan Jun Park. The exhibition is called “Mosel! Nature, Terroir, People” and its opening reception was last night (naturally with tons of wine and great food). When I saw photos on a friend’s facebook page today, I wished even more I could have been there. I asked permission to share some with you, because they bring home why I care so much about German wine, riesling, and the Mosel. And my friends…I am not sure which pictures are by whom, and some of them are not even by ManSoo or Yutaka, but it will give you a feel. Also, I am not sharing the high-resolution photos, just shots that my friend Shinju Lim, who was at the exhibition, took. Seeing riesling and the Mosel celebrated in Korea warms my heart.

While I will see ManSoo in June in Germany, Yutaka is now living in Yokohama, so it might be a little while until we get together again. But we sure will.

You can see more of Yutaka’s stunning photos here.

Here is to you, ManSoo and Yutaka! Great work.

The exhibition is on display until 8 June 2012 (so hurry up, if you are in Seoul!) in the Hilstate Gallery in Seoul. Opening hours from 10am-6pm, free admission.