You know, you taste some wine and you wish you had some at home. Especially since the winemaker will sell it to you at a good price.
But since you're there by plane, you're out of luck. You can only put a couple of bottles in your checked luggage. That's it.
Has worked well for me:
1, make a deal with a winemaker whose wine you like to buy some 10-20 cases of his wine. The more the better. It can be a lot for one person, but you're not usually touring wineries alone, so if each participant throws in something, it adds up. Plus, you won't be buying just one vintage, you'll probably like multiple vintages. Likewise, a winemaker may not have just one wine, they often have a second and third. Most importantly, that wine will last you years and in the vast majority of cases the quality goes up. So in a few years you have a great wine that you can't get anywhere else because the winemaker has sold out
2, then you politely ask the winemaker if you can supply cartons from other winemakers on that pallet of his wine. Of course you will deliver the wines to him. I've never had a winemaker disagree.
But there is one condition: you must have a receipt for every bottle you put on the pallet. An invoice or a receipt. Without that, it's hard to get a deal with the winemaker. Of course it's not the winemaker's whim, it's because the carrier would refuse to load the pallet
3, you then buy cartons (cases) of wine at your discretion from other wineries. The day before your departure, at the agreed time, you visit the winemaker with whom you have the pallet and stack the wine from the other Chateaux on it. You give the winemaker the receipts for the wines, say goodbye and leave
4, when you get home, you arrange for a freight forwarding company to load the pallet at the winemaker's in France and then transport it to your home. Know that the winemaker in France will not be very willing to arrange the transport for you. And it's in your interest too. In my experience, a French carrier will deliver your pallet for a much higher price than a domestic one
5, when the pallet of wine arrives at your home and you put the cartons or cases of wine somewhere, let the wine "rest" for at least 2-3 weeks. Only then will you open a bottle from this shipment. Impatience in this case could adversely affect the quality of the wine.