There’s no better way to relive your travel memories back home than by reminiscing over a beautiful bottle of wine from said location. Whether your next trip abroad is to Spain, Switzerland, or South Africa, you’ll more likely than not be yearning to bring some bottles back with you. We all know the anxiety of bringing bottles back home; the packing, the storing, the potential breakage… though rest assured, we’ve got you covered. Follow these packing tips for a hassle-free travel experience and bountiful break-free bottles.
Hard Luggage
Purchasing luggage with a hard shell provides a much sturdier cushion than canvas or other soft materials. Investing in hard-shell luggage will protect your bottles and any other breakable merchandise you may be traveling with.
Padding is Key
Assuring that your bottles are wrapped in padding is the easiest way to prevent breakage. In addition to placing a line of clothing around the perimeter of the inside of your luggage, use scarves, sweaters, and shirts to individually wrap each bottle. Carefully place padded bottles on opposite sides of suitcase; generally speaking, wrapping each bottle with two articles of clothing provides a desirable amount of padding.
Space, Please
Although your bottles will be individually wrapped, placing bottles as far apart from each other as possible is a great way to prevent clinking and clacking together. While the padding should be enough, we’re never against taking additional preventive measures.
Invest in Wine Skins
Wine Skins are another additional step to take in the prevention of bottle breakage. Not only does the skin provide cushion for the bottle, it also prevents against ruining other items in your bag, should the bottle indeed get broken. There’s nothing worse than broken wine bottles — except for wine bottles that break and ruin your entire spring wardrobe.
For perfect packing, we recommend placing each bottle in a wine skin, then wrapping each wine skin in a separate article of clothing. Place each wrapped item as far apart from others as possible in the suitcase. While none of these methods is guaranteed, the more preventive measures you take, the better.
You can buy VinePair’s wine skins here.
Happy traveling!