Flying Home With Willamette Valley Wines

First: Make sure you're an Atmos Rewards member, and add your membership number to your flight reservation.

Then, after you're visited some of the more than 500 wineries across the Willamette Valley and picked a few favorite wines, safely pack your haul for the return flight. We'd recommend putting bottles in a case or box and using packing materials (such as Styrofoam, bubble wrap, and crumpled-up newspaper). Many participating wineries offer free cases and packing materials. Alaska Airlines offers excellent tips for securely packing your wine to fly.

Once at the airport, check your case of wine with an agent at an Alaska Airlines ticketing counter—and enjoy your flight!

You can also check a case of your favorite wines for free when flying with Southwest Airlines. Southwest's brand-new Sip and Ship program.

Here's how it works: Passengers 21 and older bring one properly packaged case of wine (up to 12 bottles) to the Southwest ticketing desk at participating airports (which include the Eugene Airport (EUG) and Portland International Airport (PDX)). After an agent has inspected the case to ensure the bottles won't break, you can then check the case—which doesn't count toward your checked-bag allowance.

Note that Southwest requires bottles to be placed inside a sealed, leak-proof, plastic bag and recommends additional packing materials such as cardboard liners and bubble wrap.