Might have to move from CA to FL. Kinda sad that I would leave my home 45 minutes from Napa, but life happens. Anyhow, I have about a 700 bottle cellar, that I would need to take with me. Has anyone had any experience moving wine across the country, any specific companies, any idea on cost? Need some help here.
Regards,
Alex
I often wonder whether I would just sell most of it and just restart, perhaps only saving special wines. But that’s if I’m moving out of Florida. If I was moving to Florida, a wine market wasteland, but all means I would bring it all! We’re in Florida are you moving? Good luck with the move.
I used Advantage Transportation out of Salt Lake at board suggestion and they were excellent/perfect. They make regular trips to the Bay area and LA. You are looking at a couple pallets. You will need to have fork service at pick up and drop off. Should run you around $1,000.
Really, only $1k cross country for 700 bottles? I have to do this myself in a few months, haven’t gotten any quotes but that’s much lower than I expected. Temp controlled?
You can rent a cargo van with A/C one way, fit a pallet of wine in there (56 cases) and would cost about $1700 plus fuel. So for $1K to have someone else do it for you in a refer truck…i’d be all in!
Advantage is temp controlled and carries a lot of wine in and out of Seattle Wine Storage. They do transport only, you have to have the wine packed and palletized, and as mentioned about, they require a dock at both ends. They do not do residential pickups or deliveries.
If you need or want more service on either end (home pickup or delivery, packing, palletizing, etc.) you will require someone like Western Carriers or Domaine Transit, who provide full service first and last mile capabilities. You will pay considerably more, it just depends on what your needs are. Disclosure, Seattle Wine Storage provides that first and last mile service for both companies in our area.
I used Advantage to move about 500 bottles from San Francisco to Maine. They were great. My storage facility took care of packing and palletizing and also contracted directly with Advantage, so my total was more, but the trucking portion of the cost was only about $500.
I realize the last mile is where the cost is, but boy we’d all love $1/bottle shipping!
I don’t know about cost but Domaine transit specializes in this service.
Absolutely. In this case, I asked a local storage facility if I could use their loading dock (and pallet jack), and they let me for $25. I borrowed a friend’s truck and took care of the rest myself. I still had to pay for the front end portion, but the whole shebang cost me less than $1000. My purpose in relaying all of this is that if you get a little creative, moving your wine doesn’t have to be exorbitantly expensive.
I recently moved a few thousand bottles from NYC to CA. A few things to keep in mind are the packing and the delivery/reception requirements. I bought lots of boxes, stacked and shrink-wrapped the pallets, and all they had to do was use a forklift to load them up.
On delivery, the issue was whether someone had a forklift or not. A lot of places have hand pallet-jacks, but a commercial delivery service isn’t interested in that. So make sure that your delivery service and your reception service are compatible. Because I failed to do that, I have several pallets of wine that’s over 90 minutes away.
If you box and inventory your wine, you can save a few bucks. Get boxes close to your home even if you get a better price from somewhere else because you’ll pay for shipping anyway. I called a guy in CA who offered great prices but he recommended someone in NJ because his shipping costs would have made him a lot more expensive.
Driving it yourself doesn’t save you anything and takes a lot of time. The only reason to do that is because you feel like driving a truck across the country.
Advantage is good and they’re also cheaper because they don’t really do consumer moves, but as mentioned, they’ll require a forklift at loading and unloading. But they’ll cost less than most consumer-oriented shippers.
These guys might be worth a call http://www.viptransport.com/
They are part of the Mayflower group and have refrigerated moving vans, so your wine and furniture travel together in the same van. I used them for a move from Atlanta to California in 100°F heat and all went well.
I need to move my 300-bottle collection (25 cases) from the south SF Bay Area to the Boston area, and am trying to figure out the least costly way to do it without incurring too much risk. Called a number of places for estimates and here’s what I got:
$4,000 for full service (they pack, ship door-to-door, air transportation, temp. controlled, + insurance 2%)
$2,600 for door-to-door service (I pack (using their shippers at $5 each), ground shipping, temp. controlled, + insurance 2%)
$1,600 for “zero-frills” service (I pack (I can buy styro shippers via K&L), they ship door-to-door, not temp. controlled, no transit time commitment, I have to find my own insurance) – I would ship in Nov. or Dec. when temps. across the country look good
The best / least expensive solution would probably be Advantage Transportation’s temp. controlled dock-to-dock service, but I don’t know who in the area could palletize and shrink wrap the 25 cases and make them available at a dock. Plus then I would have to find a dock in MA for delivery.
Any advice? I’m leaning towards the “zero-frills” at this point.
Bump. Would appreciate any suggestions anyone may have!
Call Joel Rubins at Western Carriers.
I did advantage. Our storage facility (AIW) palletized it for us. We called around in Maine ( our destination) and storage facilities were willing to let us use their dock for a small fee ($25). We ended up just having our wine delivered to a logistics/moving company, who took delivery and then delivers to our house, but we could have saved a couple hundred by going the DIY route and renting a dock.
[quote=“Karen Troisi”]Call Joel Rubins at Western Carriers.
Karen,
Joel gave the $2,600 quote.
Dan – those prices seem steep – how much would it be to do UPS ground?
Talk to Domaine transit (Marc Lazar is here on the board and can put you in touch with the right guy) if you haven’t already
I believe the rate I paid was around $40/case temp controlled across the country, although that was picking up at a non-Domaine facility and consolidated transfer to a Domaine facility – surely more to your home, but you could also drive to NJ to pick it up.
They did a great job and everything showed up in perfect shape.
Thanks Erich, I’ll check with Domaine. Would love to get a $40/case rate. This whole thing would be alot easier if I could just do UPS ground, but my understanding is that, as ridiculous as it is, you have to be a licensed shipper to send alcohol via UPS. And I don’t think they’d buy that I’m sending 25 cases of olive oil.
I can definitely vouch for Western Carriers (they moved my collection from Seattle to So Cal a few years ago), but it’s not the “budget” option.