Well, I had my fill of Europe. 3 weeks, lots of driving, lots of pictures, lots of wine. I drove from Bergamo back to Nice and flew home the next day.The wine had been packaged up and was ready to ship. A local shipping company picked up the pallet of wine from my friends’ house and transported it to Marseilles. From there, it was loaded into a container, loaded onto a ship and transported to the U.S.
Once in the U.S., pallet was loaded onto another truck and shipped to a transfer warehouse near my house in MN. I was a bit nervous about this last leg as it was happening in late November and I was worried about the wine freezing.
The pallet of wine arrived in MN in early December. Finally! I had to go to the transfer company to get the paperwork, then to the U.S. Customs office at the Twin Cities airport to pay import taxes and then back to the transfer warehouse to pick up my wine.
This was my first (and only) foray into something like this – purchasing something rather large out of country and then shipping it back. My average cost for the wine was about $8.00/bottle, which included import taxes. Unfortunately, the shipping turned out to be about $5/bottle. By far the most expensive portion of shipping was the short trip from Montpelier to Marseilles. I could do better next time – if there is a next time…
And here it is! Not a single broken bottle and nothing frozen. Whew!
Well, that’s about it. The wine lasted about 2 years – none of it was really destined for the cellar.
Go ahead and read the next blog posts about subsequent bicycle trips to Europe and around the U.S.