Do you believe in travel shock as described below?
Yes
No
0voters
This has been discussed many times on many boards, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it polled.
Travel Shock = Effect on wine – presumably negative – that occurs from the shipment or transport of the bottle. We’re going to assume that the movement happened in reasonable – by wine collector standards – conditions. If such effects exist, one must wait some period of time before the wine returns to “normal” and can be consumed and judged on its own merits. (This is not to be confused with bottle shock or bottling shock, the temporary change in a wine that occurs during the bottling process.)
For the sake of this poll, the wines in question are young and without signficant sediment, however you want to interpret those terms.
Since you stipulated the wines are young and without sediment I’d say “No” in most cases. However, I do believe that Champagne can suffer from travel shock.
I use to think “yes” for older wines but after taking 2 mags of old cab to the NYC Berserkerfest and drinking them right away I’m changing that to “no”. They were just fine.
Absolutely, but I think it’s very rare.
It could also be “bottling shock” too if it’s bottled and then shipped immediately, so it’s hard to say which one happens more often.
I agree with Ian on the post bottling shock. I think most of what we think is “bottle” shock (in reference to recent release wines) is really bottling shock.
It seems to me that wine post bottling needs 6-8 months to really settle down and for the post bottling shock effects to almost completely wear off or settle down.
I come to this conclusion by opening hundreds of bottles post bottling and the fluctuation in initial (immediate post opening) can be quite dramatic. The wines eventually settle down or settle in with some air
Absolutely with older wines and there is a way to prove it
Take a bottle from your cellar / fridge etc. that is old and has a serious amount of sediment - like a 90 Beaucastel. Hold it up to a light and you can a very clear wine
Ship it across the country - hold it up to the light - and the wine is very very dark…leave it settled on its side for a few days and the wine is once again clear…
That - to me - is travel shock…
Younger wines this is not an issue - for the most part…
Many winemakers obviously don’t. Look at all the wine shipped within a few days/weeks of bottling. I’ve seen wine go off the bottling line straight to the distributors.
Never seen a posted TN saying Bottle Shock was obvious. Seen plenty of TNs posted for wines having not been in the bottle a month.
I always allow any bottle shipped to me to settle for at least 2 weeks before opening. I rarely open a new release wine within 6 months of receipt to give it time to overcome all of the above.
Just because the were “fine” doesn’t mean that they weren’t affected. Could they have been better if shipped 6-12 months before, maybe, could they have been the same, maybe…
I voted “No” because I have never experienced travel shock. But with so many people convinced it can happen, I am not 100% convinced.
I know it wasn’t the question, but since it was brought up, I am a 100% believer in bottle shock. I have seen rapid changes in wines within the first 6 months post-bottling, only to be followed by gradual, predictable, consistent changes.
When people say they’ve experienced it or not… how can you tell? The only way I can imagine you could tell is if you had a bottle that’s been resting in your cellar, ship another bottle that’s also been resting in your cellar and then have that within a short time of the first bottle, thus eliminating the issue of age. However, bottles can vary for other reasons so there’s no real way to tell if the difference between bottle 1 and bottle 2 is due to travel shock, the closure, etc.
Also, I can’t vote since the poll does not differentiate between traveling to my friends’ house with wine for dinner there, cross country shipping via UPS Ground and shipping overseas where the bottle might spend weeks in transit.
I have seen bottles seem muted right after they hit the wine shop (and having just arrived off the boat) and much better a month later. So, do I believe in it? Not as a 100% occurance. Do I allow for the possibility and not open wines that have just been shipped and instead allow them to rest for a few weeks? Yes. Why take a risk? But then I rarely order wines shipped for immediate drinking. The last time I did so I overnighted a 1983 Haut Brion blanc on a Monday for a dinner on a Friday night and it was marvelous.
As others have said I’ve seen what I think it is but not consistently. I’ve opened bottles right off the truck that were wide open. But with older wines and the sediment issues I wouldn’t even try. Best just to wait a month or so and then check in.
Matt, to me that is NOT travel shock, simply the sediment being disturbed. You can create the same circumstances without bothering to ship the bottle, just take an old bottle turn it upside down a few times, and voila, the wine is cloudy. Stand it upright for a day to a week (depending on the amount and fineness of the sediment), the cloudiness disappears, and the wine is perfectly drinkable.
Travel shock (which I don’t believe in) is the idea that the wine requires weeks or months to recover from the damage/shock of shipping, that even after allowing the sediment to settle out, that the wine itself is affected by the travel.
By your definition of travel shock, a white wine with no sediment could basically never be affected by travel shock. Yet many people believe that they are, or can be.
There is no doubt in my mind. I’ve traveled with wine many times-mostly by car- and with wines that I consume frequently and I’ve noticed that these wines can often be thrown out of whack.
I travel frequently and frequently with old (25+ years old) wine. Never a problem once the sediment is allowed to settle and the wine to clear.
In Sept I checked a box of wine from LAX to JFK with '82 and older Bordeaux. A day after landing, drank '82 Haut Brion and it was as good or better than the bottle shared with the X-Pensive Winos a couple of months earlier. The next night, we drank '82 Mouton and, to quote the sommelier at 11 Madison Park, it was “stunning.” I am lucky and old enough to have purchased a quantity on release and have tasted the wine dozens of times. The bottle at EMP was the best I’ve ever tasted.
I then checked the remaining bottles on a flight from JFK to Zurich, where we rented a car and drove through Alsace and the Rhine Valley, shipper from LA in the trunk. '79 Lafleur (sadly, my last bottle) was fantastic, as were the other bottles we consumed along the way. All I did was stand them up for a day.
Old Burgundies may be another matter, often having finer sediment that takes longer to settle and for the wine to completely clear.
Using your definition - the idea that a wine requires weeks or months to recover from shipping - I do not believe this exists…
With my definition - you call it disturbing sediment - I call it travel shock if the bottle has been disturbed due to travel. I guess if I sat there and shook the bottle up myself the get the same effect I would call it something else…