Wine shipment arriving on 82 degree day - a concern?

I’ve been emailing with Littorai about a shipment they’re sending to me this week, via UPS Ground, which will arrive this Thursday. The high temp in TX this week is in the low eighties. I told them this is too hot, but was too late as these have already released. Am I overreacting here or is my concern legit?

It’s a potential issue, but not necessarily a problem. It depends on a lot of factors, including when the wine is delivered during the day, how hot it gets inside the truck, and the kind of insulation in the shipper. If you can, open the shipper immediately after it’s delivered and feel the bottles to see if they are warm to the touch. If they are, then you have more reason for concern.

Bruce

similar result with Bedrock last week.
Nights have been a bit cooler and the bottles arrived cool to the touch.
I wouldn’t worry but I would check the bottles just in case.

It wouldn’t concern me the tiniest bit, but I’m not part of the Cult of Wine Always Needing Perfect Storage Conditions. I doubt there’s much wine in the world that hasn’t sat around at 80 degrees at some point in its life.

Maybe you will get lucky and they will drop it before it hits your doorstep.

I don’t get why wineries take the risk when they could just wait a couple of weeks for cooler temps. To me, I prefer to error on the cooler side than hotter. I am in Nor Cal so I have a longer window than some very northern states but I never ship when High Temps are over 74F and will go down to 30F for lows.

I’m not shipping there until next month. Seems too early even if the wines might well be fine. Might.

+1

Marcassin just sent an email delaying shipping until 1st or 2nd week of November. Seems to be the trend with most of my fall allocations.

Chris, just think of the vibration as well. Are they being shipped with gyro stabilizers?

Sherry-Lehman sent me a case of '05 Bordeaux through a heatwave in the upper 80s. I let it rest, popped one bottle and was satisfied. Look for signs of evil done to the bottles, crack one open, see how it tastes – you’ll know.

Because temperatures across the country are not the same. Choosing to ship individual customer’s orders when the temperatures at point A, point B and every point in between are ideal is way too much work…

Check for heat damage; if they look ok, enjoy.

Wine is supposed to deliver Thursday when it’s in the low 80’s. If I somehow miss the delivery, the next day it’s supposed to jump to 91. I think they could have waited a few weeks just to be sure. The thought of all my Littorai babies getting warm just makes my skin crawl!

Your absolutely right Scott, luckily all of my pending shipments were rescheduled. I hope the wine arrived in good shape.

+one million

Isn’t 82F a Texas winter?

I would expect them to be fine. Nights are cool. Check when they get delivered, but I think they will be ok.

Is it possible to have change the delivery to have them hold it at the facility, and just pick it up there?

Is this a standing wine club shipment? Don’t they have any ability to attach customer preferences to memberships? Shoot, I was doing that 5-7 years ago, and if a customer wanted his wines shipped only during certain weather windows, that note was attached to his membership profile and we would call to confirm. Of course, that doesn’t mean you get to have a hissy fit if the weather changes from one day in December to the next, but still, why is your question about one shipment in particular when it sounds as though your question should be about their customer process?