We received the product for review and all opinions are our own.
Today’s review is for the Bottleguardian travel case. While traveling, especially on airlines, we need to check our luggage if we want to bring wine bottles with us or we may be coming home with wine. The last thing you want is a broken wine bottle in your checked luggage losing that precious wine, or even damaging your clothing and other items. The Bottleguardian was designed to help that situation.
The Bottleguardian is a polyethylene case that has 5/32 inch thick walls to help protect your valuable wine. The case comes in two parts and assembles to protect the bottle. When the two pieces are separated, the top piece inverts into the bottom. When inverted for storage, the size of the case is 4 inches wide by 8 inches high. When the top is assembled to the bottom via a threaded connection, the entire assembly is 4 inches wide by 14 inches high.
The bottom container uses a rubber seal at the threaded connection to contain any wine that might spill if the bottle inside might happen to break. Be careful not to lose the rubber seal though. I received four sample containers and somehow one of them does not have a rubber seal, probably through my own misuse. It’s a good thing the Bottleguardian website sells a five unit pack of replacement seals.
Speaking of the Bottleguardian website, the Bottleguardian can be purchased in four colors: red, white, blue, and black. It is sold in sets of one, two, or three, and you can select different colors for your different Bottleguardians.
Back to the review, how does the Bottleguardian work? I tried multiple sized wine bottles in the bottom section and every one needed some form of padding to protect the bottle from touching the sides of the container. A couple socks fit one bottle nicely to keep the bottle from moving.
The instructions suggest using some form of padding to cushion the bottle like bubble wrap or clothing. It doesn’t specifically say to use any padding on top of the bottle, but if you have something to protect the top of the bottle in case the bottle shifts up and down, I would do it just to be safe.
Does it work great when traveling? If you were going somewhere where you knew you were coming back with wine, that means you would have to carry the disassembled container by itself which takes up space in your suitcase. Of course, you could use clean socks inside the container for packing on the first leg of the flight, and dirty socks on the return trip, so that helps with the space issue.
When you are not using the Bottleguardian as a travel companion, you can use it as a wine cooler. It doesn’t do anything special regarding that, but the bottom part provides a perfect size for inserting a bottle and then surrounding it with ice and water. That makes a nice container to bring out to your patio and keep your bottle of wine cool. Of course, since you are using the bottom part again, be careful not to lose the rubber seal! In fact, if I was using the Bottleguardian as a wine cooler, I would remove the rubber seal just to avoid losing it.
Cheers!
Update: It appears that Bottleguardian is no longer offered as a product. Please look at our reviews of wine accessories for other travel products.
Check out the Texas Wine Lover Amazon storefront for products we recommend!
Where can you buy these? They would make a great travel Gift for our Clients
Hi Carolyn. It appears that Bottleguardian is no longer in business. One of the reviews we did for travel products like this may prove better. You can see all our reviews of wine accessories on the website. Cheers!