Henschke Bottle Quality... thoughts?

[Akrasian]

Hi All,

Long time lurker, first time poster here, I quite enjoy the banter on this forum.

I recently travelled back to France from Oz and brought back a 2010 Henschke Tappa Pass Shiraz. Unfortunately when I opened my suitcase the bottle itself seems to have shattered into smithereens, with the label the only thing holding the glass together (apart from the screw cap which I plan on turning into a candleholder!).

I mentioned this in passing to my brother-in-law and found out he had the same issue with a Henschke bottle not long ago when completing a similar long haul flight. I am certain that I could have packed my luggage slightly better but I do wonder if this is not a coincidence and someone else here might have a story or two to tell?

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[Ian S]

I love the idea that you'd turn a bad experience into a work of art - that is lovely thinking for sure.

[JamieAdelaide]

I transport a few hundred wines a year in suitcases including Henschke and never a problem. However I ensure they insulated for a 60 degree tarmac and to be thrown onto concrete from 10 feet up! Baggage handlers can be asses or accidents do happen. So insulate and pad as much as you can.

[Dragzworthy]

Makes me think I am extremely lucky to never have had a broken bottle in my suitcases over the years. I usually don't bother with bubble wrap, just cover the bottles inside clothes within a hard cased luggage.

[Ian S]

Makes me think I am extremely lucky to never have had a broken bottle in my suitcases over the years. I usually don't bother with bubble wrap, just cover the bottles inside clothes within a hard cased luggage.

Ditto, though I did leave a carrying cardboard carton with a bottle each of Barolo and Taurasi in the hook of a baggage trolley after putting the luggage into the boot of the car. Realised the mistake 20 miles up the road, and unsurprisingly never turned up in lost property at the airport.

I do still use bubble wrap as well as clothes, as I travel with a large rucksack and hence there's less structural protection

[JamieAdelaide]

Makes me think I am extremely lucky to never have had a broken bottle in my suitcases over the years. I usually don't bother with bubble wrap, just cover the bottles inside clothes within a hard cased luggage.

A few bottles is pretty easy to protect. I move two suitcases per trip, 12 bottles in each. Weight is 20kg per suitcase. I stripped the lightest suitcases on the market and re-padded them internally and around their metal framework. The Samsonites weigh 2.4KG. I successfully moved thousands of bottles to Australia.

Bit extreme but my circumstances unique. Access to tax free wine and Business Class travel at staff rates. Wine went both ways- I brought heaps of wine into Hong Kong from Australia. I’m sure pleased I took advantage of it. I could not justify drinking foreign wine in this country unless I won last week’s 100 mil Powerball!

[Dragzworthy]

Makes me think I am extremely lucky to never have had a broken bottle in my suitcases over the years. I usually don't bother with bubble wrap, just cover the bottles inside clothes within a hard cased luggage.

A few bottles is pretty easy to protect. I move two suitcases per trip, 12 bottles in each. Weight is 20kg per suitcase. I stripped the lightest suitcases on the market and re-padded them internally and around their metal framework. The Samsonites weigh 2.4KG. I successfully moved thousands of bottles to Australia.

Bit extreme but my circumstances unique. Access to tax free wine and Business Class travel at staff rates. Wine went both ways- I brought heaps of wine into Hong Kong from Australia. I’m sure pleased I took advantage of it. I could not justify drinking foreign wine in this country unless I won last week’s 100 mil Powerball!

I'm planning to repatriate to Australia (from Singapore) in around five years time. Think I have about 800 bottles here, perhaps I should start taking 24 bottles on each trip back.

[JamieAdelaide]

Get cracking My best individual effort about 80 bottles. 15 to 20K of Barolo at In Bond pricing. Being the height of the irrational COVID fear, nobody in Customs would process me. Sweeter through, was Dan’s hotel quarantine program didn’t allow alcohol other than that bought off the expensive hotel wine list. So I sat in a hotel for two weeks with all my wine and drank a number of bottles.

You may have to make your own bag as many airlines won’t take more than 25kg. A case of 12 is about 19kg so doesn’t leave much room for a heavy bag and zero room for clothes etc

[Dragzworthy]

Get cracking My best individual effort about 80 bottles. 15 to 20K of Barolo at In Bond pricing. Being the height of the irrational COVID fear, nobody in Customs would process me. Sweeter through, was Dan’s hotel quarantine program didn’t allow alcohol other than that bought off the expensive hotel wine list. So I sat in a hotel for two weeks with all my wine and drank a number of bottles.

You may have to make your own bag as many airlines won’t take more than 25kg. A case of 12 is about 19kg so doesn’t leave much room for a heavy bag and zero room for clothes etc

I normally try and fly Singapore airlines as I have a good points arrangement and my status with them allows a lot of luggage, never seem to have had an issue with >25kg suitcases.

Amusing to be sitting in quarantine drinking your own bottles! I imagine the time went a lot quicker in such a backdrop.

[JamieAdelaide]

Wow I checked and they have a 32KG limit. I guess F=MA so insulate not only for tarmac temp’, but a good fall from height.

[phillisc]

Still wonder how my parents in the 80s brought home 18 bottles of vintage champagne stuffed inside about a dozen pairs of leather shoes...not one breakage. No checks those days, everyone waved through
Cheers Craig

[mychurch]

My wife somehow managed to take 70kg worth of luggage one time on a normal luggage allowance. I believe there were 18 bottles in total. Her ‘secret’ seems to be to turn up very late, which was how she got the cases checked in. Apparently she had 15kg of stuff in her handbag.

We have moved a lot of wine over the years and I think we have only had 1 broken bottle - when a case was filled with 5 instead of 6 bottles

[JamieAdelaide]

Moving fine wine and being an industry insider my biggest concern was temperature. You can fry an egg on a tarmac, then your bag may end up going from 60 degrees on the tarmac to a sometimes very cold cargo compartment. So if you insulate for these extreme temperatures you’ve probably covered yourself for a brutal baggage handling process.

I miss foreign wine so much I’ve applied to US cargo carriers for jobs. Which could be interesting for the Aussie cellar.

[Dragzworthy]

Moving fine wine and being an industry insider my biggest concern was temperature. You can fry an egg on a tarmac, then your bag may end up going from 60 degrees on the tarmac to a sometimes very cold cargo compartment. So if you insulate for these extreme temperatures you’ve probably covered yourself for a brutal baggage handling process.

I miss foreign wine so much I’ve applied to US cargo carriers for jobs. Which could be interesting for the Aussie cellar.

I assume this means you work in logistics or are a pilot? Where are you at present?
You've inspired me to look at a slow migration of bottles over the next few years. Just the thought of paying taxes on a bulk shipment is frightening

[JamieAdelaide]

I’m in ADL and repatriated last year. Bring back wines of longevity as you’ll treasure treating yourselves to them on occasion. That’s what I’ve found anyways. My palate hasn’t localised at all. This more to the quaffing spectrum where local wines dreary and too heavy when you just want a few glasses at night. I’m a pilot and there’s probably going to be a massive shortage coming so I’ve decided to get back into it. The shortage in the US is critical and they have a specialist visa system not available to other nationalities. So I’ve applied to freight companies which could be very good for shipping wine home.

[Dragzworthy]

I’m in ADL and repatriated last year. Bring back wines of longevity as you’ll treasure treating yourselves to them on occasion. That’s what I’ve found anyways. My palate hasn’t localised at all. This more to the quaffing spectrum where local wines dreary and too heavy when you just want a few glasses at night. I’m a pilot and there’s probably going to be a massive shortage coming so I’ve decided to get back into it. The shortage in the US is critical and they have a specialist visa system not available to other nationalities. So I’ve applied to freight companies which could be very good for shipping wine home.

Yes one thing that concerns me is how I'm going to get (let alone afford!) Foreign wines when I return to Australia...however I'm finding that the Australian made Chardonnays are outstanding (Margaret River, Yarra Valley and Tasmanian spring to mind) and there's an abundance of good Cabernet or Bordeaux style blends. The difficult substitutions will be things like Nebbiolo, Pinot Noir (whilst there's a huge improvement in the last decade, the terroir of Burgundy still provides a chasm quality gap) and Sangiovese. Champagne prices seem relatively similar here in Singapore compared with Melbourne as well.

Good idea getting back into it, definitely a huge shortage in many industries and one of the driving forces behind this is the myopic attitude governments worldwide have adopted during and post the pandemic, effectively making immigration very difficult. The uncomfortable truth is that many countries rely on foreign talent in some areas of the economy, particularly in high skilled/specialized fields.

[Mike Hawkins]

As I’ve posted elsewhere, I’ve never had issues and depending on baggage policy, have brought 60 plus bottles at a time. I buy double or triple strength boxes, put each bottle in a recycled wine skin (or keep them in their original six pack) and stuff the boxes full of packing peanuts. I generally get about 17 bottles per box which makes it a bit of a drama getting to/from the airport.

Other times I simply use the 12 bottle styrofoam boxes which work well.

[Mike Hawkins]

As I’ve posted elsewhere, I’ve never had issues and depending on baggage policy, have brought 60 plus bottles at a time. I buy double or triple strength boxes, put each bottle in a recycled wine skin (or keep them in their original six pack) and stuff the boxes full of packing peanuts. I generally get about 17 bottles per box which makes it a bit of a drama getting to/from the airport.

Other times I simply use the 12 bottle styrofoam boxes which work well.

[kenzo]

Styrofoam wine shippers inside the cardboard boxes have worked well for me, although if you ship locally from the airport in Japan you need to repack them into a normal cardboard box provided by the carrier - go figure.

Just got back to Japan and had one bottle broken - 1972 Wynns Black Label. The Grange, HOG, St Henri, 389, and 28 all made it through thankfully.

[JamieAdelaide]

Good to hear of everyone’s success. I think I was a bit more obsessive because of temperature. My wine would start in the tropics so I insulated heavily. Coming back from Australia I had a few litres of frozen organic milk to keep meat cool that was inbound to Honkers with a few bottles of great Aussie wine. I kept an eye on the temp with a thermostat in the suitcase and my techniques worked well.

[Dragzworthy]

Good to hear of everyone’s success. I think I was a bit more obsessive because of temperature. My wine would start in the tropics so I insulated heavily. Coming back from Australia I had a few litres of frozen organic milk to keep meat cool that was inbound to Honkers with a few bottles of great Aussie wine. I kept an eye on the temp with a thermostat in the suitcase and my techniques worked well.

You're obviously much more in the know than me on these airport logistical matters. But let's say the plane is leaving at 10AM and one checks in (bag drop) at 8AM ...would it be that bad for the bottles to get two hours of exposure on the tarmac? Curious to know which tropical area you were in...wouldn't imagine it could get any more offensive than Singapore with regards to humidity at least.

[Ian S]

Will be interested in Jamie's experience, but I can't ever recall seeing bags sat on the tarmac (or on a baggage truck) for any extended period of time. Perhaps a greater risk is the bags being sat in the baggage area waiting for a delayed arrival plane, or in the hold for a delayed departure. Not sure what sort of temperatures you'd see in those locations.

[phillisc]

Oh Simon,
Sorry to hear about the '72!
Cheers Craig

[kenzo]

Yeah - I think it happened on the Japan end, surprisingly. The bottle was in the centre of the case which had cardboard stuffed in about half of the empty slots - a last minute repack in BNE airport before check in. I opened the box expecting worse, and TBH was relieved to find it was just the one...The other 72s, 02 Rockford Black, early 00s Joseph, Standish, and Sami Odi made it through unscathed!

[Dragzworthy]

Yeah - I think it happened on the Japan end, surprisingly. The bottle was in the centre of the case which had cardboard stuffed in about half of the empty slots - a last minute repack in BNE airport before check in. I opened the box expecting worse, and TBH was relieved to find it was just the one...The other 72s, 02 Rockford Black, early 00s Joseph, Standish, and Sami Odi made it through unscathed!

Earliest I've gone back on Wynn's is 1986 and that was last year. Do you think the 1972 would have still been drinkable?
Amazing wines..sorry to hear of your loss.

[phillisc]

Many moons ago before Wynns was under the clutches of TWE there was a lot more autonomy with winemaking staff. I actually spoke to Sue Hodder asking if there was museum stock/back vintages available for sale. She said she would see what she could do and a return call offered a range of BLs from the 70s and 80s at reasonable prices.
I picked up a dozen singles, 73, 77, 78 and some early 80s plus a magnum of 72. This was drunk about 5 years ago and was excellent.
Good bottles from the 60s are a treat too.
Cheers Craig

[Dragzworthy]

Many moons ago before Wynns was under the clutches of TWE there was a lot more autonomy with winemaking staff. I actually spoke to Sue Hodder asking if there was museum stock/back vintages available for sale. She said she would see what she could do and a return call offered a range of BLs from the 70s and 80s at reasonable prices.
I picked up a dozen singles, 73, 77, 78 and some early 80s plus a magnum of 72. This was drunk about 5 years ago and was excellent.
Good bottles from the 60s are a treat too.
Cheers Craig

Wow that's pretty awesome. I actually don't really understand why more producers in Australia don't keep their bottles longer before releasing as well as maintain museum storage on a set number per year. Unlike most other wine making countries, it's not as though we are extremely short on space and you could say there's a pretty decent appreciation for back vintage in a backdrop of short supply

[JamieAdelaide]

As to how long your bag may be on a hot tarmac is anyone’s guess. Sure they start undercover, then in an aluminium shipping container that will cook rapidly then in cargo hold. Delays, malfunctions of cooling equipment etc insulate as best you can- especially vulnerable are magnums. I’ve also had ice on bags on two occasions. That’s an extremes temperature range from starting on a Hong Kong tarmac in summer. I’ve also seen wines come out of any cellar in Adelaide and arrive home in Hong Kong at the same temp they left at.

[WAwineguy]

I assume you are all paying significant amounts of duty/GST/WET bringing more than 3 bottles into Australia in your suitcases?

[JamieAdelaide]

Well it’s not free.

You can be creative and it became an art form for me. All above board and often involved people carrying wine back for you.