Bringing Wine to Spain and/or Italy from US

Traveling with the family to Rome for a few days before a cruise to Barcelona where we will spend a few days after the cruise before heading home.

Does anyone know if there are restrictions on bringing wine into Italy or Spain? We have a brief layover in MAD so wondering if I might be able to short check wine and ship it to the BCN hotel from MAD? Flying AA metal to MAD connecting to AA codeshare on IB MAD-FCO.

I realize this is a bit like bringing sand to the beach while in Rome and Barcelona, but I mostly want the wine for the cruise and also some older Port to enjoy in our hotel rooms.

Thanks!

Yes, there are restrictions. They are often ignored, but you can’t count on that. Customs websites for each country are pretty useful in determining allowances. I don’t recall exactly the amounts allowed, but know I have found both easily with a quick Google search. Print out the screen shots from the websites just in case you get someone troublesome in customs. Though I have been stopped and questioned in smaller airports in Spain, it’s always been resolved quickly.

Good luck getting anything alcohol related onto the cruise ship. You should double check their rules first. Mine will let me bring it on but I have to put it into their storage where I can’t get to it until the cruise is over

Thanks, Sarah and Joe. It’s a Celebrity ship, so RCCL rules, which is 2 bottles per cabin and we have 3 cabins.

You can fly in with as much as you want for personal consumption, but duty-free it’s 4 litres (just over 5 standard bottles) per person. Having said that I’ve never had to pay anything and I usually bring in a Wine Check with 12 bottles (usually either into Spain or France). Once you’re in the EU you can transport up to a whopping 90 litres per person between any EU countries duty free by law :slight_smile:

More info on the subject: https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/es-spain-customs-currency-airport-tax-regulations-details.htm

You may wonder why oh why I am flying with wine into these wine countries?! The truth is my wine-lover European friends have a very tough time getting interesting foreign wine from the US or say from the Okanagan, British Columbia. Good luck getting a foreign bottle of anything in most of France or Italy for example. It always makes our wine tasting get togethers more interesting.

David be careful with the cabins and make sure there is an adult over 21 in each one for the purpose of carrying on wine. Celebrity is terribly strict as they would much prefer you to buy their wine. I have even read instances where port as it is fortified has given people problems. They do have some very good wines available on board. Especially Italians at a good price. Sometimes less than U.S retail

Enjoy your cruise.

George

Some cruise lines are restrictive on bringing wine on board. We cruise on Regent, Oceania, and Viking. They do not have any restrictions so do check the cruise line to save yourself the trouble.

Yeah - Celebrity wasn’t my choice for exactly this reason, but my sister wanted it so I obliged. RCCL and its other lines used the moonshine incident years ago as an excuse to stop people from bringing wine on board. I usually go on Holland America. Celebrity allows two bottles per stateroom - we have three with adults in each so at least we get 6 bottles.