SAN JOSE, Calif. – With the airline ban on carry-on liquids putting a cork in Wine Country travelers’ plans to fly home a bottle, connoisseurs of California’s sacred nectar are left with few options at the security checkpoint: chug it, check it or ship it.

Vineyards across the region, hoping to avoid a drop in sales during prime wine season, are offering free storage boxes and discounted shipping to keep the 14.8 million wine lovers who visit California vineyards each year carting home those coveted bottles of pinot noir and chardonnay. But not everyone can take advantage: 16 states prohibit wine shipments, while others have partial bans on alcohol deliveries, according to the Wine Institute.

That left travelers like Anton and Lorena Gerasimov guzzling a bottle of champagne outside the security gates at San Francisco International Airport on Thursday. The Santa Clara, Calif., couple had planned to celebrate the end of Lorena’s nursing board exam aboard a flight to Russia to visit his family.

At the Beauregard Vineyards tasting room overlooking the bustling Santa Cruz beach, Dublin, Calif., resident Sharon Van Loon faced the dilemma. She had planned to greet a friend with some California wine when she flies to Portland, Ore., next week.

But now she’s unsure how to get it there. She could ship a $540 case of cabernet sauvignon through the vineyard for an extra $20 or so, but that could be difficult because her friend lives on a boat. She did not plan to check any luggage for the short trip, so storing it in her suitcase or buying a $5 insulated box didn’t sound worthwhile.

Now, she might just end up leaving the bottles at home.

“Wine is the number-one gracious gift to give when you go out of town if you’re a Californian,” she said. “This will not be good for anyone.”

Attitudes like those worry Robert O’Malley, vice president of the popular V. Sattui Winery in Napa Valley.

“There is a knee-jerk reaction in that people don’t want to even risk taking wines to the airport at all – even to check as luggage,” he said.

It’s a crime for unlicensed individuals to ship wine in the United States, but airlines permit travelers to check wine in Styrofoam-insulated boxes, available for purchase at most vineyards. Wine lovers can also purchase bottles inside many airport terminals, including San Francisco airport, but those bottles now must be consumed before passengers board.

By Friday night, Wine Wisdom hadn’t sold a single bottle from its SFO shop behind the security checkpoint since the liquid ban began, Greg Fong, who works at the shop.

For a price, vineyards will ship directly to customers living in states where it is legal. This may be the best option for customers who don’t want the hassle of checking a 40-pound case of wine, said John Ritchey, a tasting room manager at Beauregard Vineyards.

“I wouldn’t want to carry wine at all in baggage,” he said. “It could break and spill all over the place.”

Some wine sellers view the new restrictions as an opportunity to expand the number of customers who buy their spirits by phone and the Internet. In 2005, California shipped 441 million gallons of wine to the U.S. market.

O’Malley said that V. Sattui only ships about 30 percent of its wine right now, but he thinks that number might grow as a result of the regulations.

Yet, if the airport restrictions do have a negative effect on sales, wineries like V. Sattui may be among the hardest hit. It sells its wine only from the vineyard and by special order, whereas other vineyards rely on restaurants and stores to sell their product.

Nationwide, only one to two percent of wine is sold directly to customers, according to the Wine Institute, a public policy advocacy group for California wineries.

Deborah Cahn, an owner of Navarro Vineyards in Philo, Calif., said that the new regulations have not been in effect long enough to have any noticeable impact on sales at her vineyard, where 90 percent of bottles go directly to customers. She hopes airports will develop a more exacting screening process to discriminate between dangerous liquids and vials of syrah.

“I would be more upset,” she said, “if it reaches a point where there was no way to recognize what was in the bottle.”