Wine storage in Minneapolis

Described in this topic/thread is the sad story of the demise of my wine collection, with the cause not clear. It was left in the care of Haskell’s in Minneapolis for 12+ years while I worked overseas. Has anyone had or heard of bad experiences with wine storage at Haskell’s? Please feel free to PM me if you would prefer not to respond directly to this post. Many thanks.


Can rough transport over a bumpy interstate highway for 16 hours cause wine to go bad? When transferred to Europe 12 years ago I left my wine collection in the hands of a wine merchant. All were drinking well at that time. I recently returned to the US and picked up the wine. I transported it to my home in Colorado in a trailer early in June. I drove all night and put 40 lbs of dry ice in the trailer to ensure the wine didn’t suffer from high temps. After waiting 3 weeks for the wine to recover from bottle shock, I opened a 2000 Ridge Montebello. It was undrinkable. I opened another 2000 Montebello with the same result. I then opened a 2001 Montebello, a 2002 Quilceda Creek cab followed by 3 other wines from Spain, France and California. All were bad. I fear the entire collection is undrinkable. The wine merchant is suggesting that the wine was ruined by the transport.

Heat ruins wine, not a move if temp controlled.

That sounds like a horrible nightmare! Hopefully bottles will recover.

Any signs of seepage, color change, elevated or depressed corks? Need to take a critical look at what’s happening. How did wines taste? Oxidized, corked, heat damaged?

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Sounds like all your wines were cooked, and badly.
Was insurance involved at any point in this move?

Any more information on what you mean by bad/undrinkable?

Of course the wine merchant was suggesting transport ruined the wine…

What were the storage conditions at this wine merchant? You said you used a trailer and dry ice…what part of the country? What time of day? What was the ambient temp outside? Ambient temp in the trailer? How long? How were the wines stored - styro/ no Styron etc?

What were the characteristics that made the wine “undrinkable”? Are there any physical signs of damage - i.e. Seepage or pushed corks?

Did you store the wine for 12 years at the wine merchant?

Bottle shock is different than what you describe. Probably cooked.

I would think the problem was likely how the wine was stored for 12 years by this merchant. Do you know what the conditions were like? Are you sure? 12 years is a long time. It could well have been the trip, but it would be because of heat rather than the movement if that were the case. Are you sure the wine remained cool in the trailer?

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Thanks for the many replies. The wine was transported from Minneapolis to Colorado departing late afternoon, driving all night to avoid high temps, arriving in Steamboat Springs in the morning. The ambient temperature never exceeded 80 degrees and that high temp lasted for no more tha 3 hours. Since this was night (no sun hitting the trailer) and there was dry ice distributed around the wine I don’t believe that it reached the ambient temperature.

Regarding how the wine was stored, the wine merchant told me that the wine had been stored vertically, cork down at 50 to 61 degrees.

The wine was cooked before you ever picked it up. Sorry man.

Yes, stored the entire 12 years at the wine merchant. During that time neither I nor anyone I know touched the wine.

The consensus of the three of us who sampled each bottle is that the wine had an oxidized taste. No signs of seepage or elevated or depressed corks, though 6 of the 7 corks were extremely difficult to remove with several breaking or needing to be broken and or pushed into the bottle in order to pour the wine. No obvious color change.

There is no way the wine was ruined by transport. Nor are the flavors you are describing those I would expect from bottle shock, which tend to be an austerity and dumbness not oxidation. Especially wines that young, and even more with California Cabernets which are pretty robust. Think bunched flavors and retreating into a shell rather like a turtle. Burgundy tends to be the wine I leave untouched after transport.

This leaves only one possible solution, the wine was cooked in storage, and over several days. I would be curious if there were any large scale power cuts in the intervening years; you may be able to get that information from the local power company.

The reality is that there is no way to know for sure. Based on the fact of the wines seemed oxidized, my vote would be on some kind of heat damage. Could jostling have caused this as well? Most would say no but do we really know for sure?

Larry - we may not but ALL wine is transported unless you’re drinking it directly from the tank it was made in. Any wine that comes from Europe will be bottled and stored at a winery. Then it will be lifted onto a truck and driven, often over very bumpy mountainous roads, to a transfer point or if you’re lucky, to a dockside warehouse. From there it will be loaded into a container. That will be lifted onto a ship. It will travel across the ocean, subject to whatever turbulence it encounters on deep water. On arrival, the container will be lifted off the ship and set into a receiving area. The pallets of wine will be unloaded and put onto a truck to a warehouse. At the warehouse, the pallets will be set in some area, perhaps moved a few times, and even lifted onto another truck to be shipped to a state like Colorado, which doesn’t have a sea coast. Alternatively, the pallets will be broken down, cases will be put onto another pallet with other wines, that will be shrink-wrapped and lifted onto a truck, and that will be carried to wherever it’s finally going. From that receiving warehouse, it will be sent to a retailer, again each case being lifted and tossed about. At the retail shop, the wine will be tossed about, then put on a shelf. A bottle will be picked up, looked at, put back. The shelf might be reorganized and the bottles shaken yet again. Then a customer will come in, buy the wine, put it in a bag and drive it home. The wine will have encountered many temperature shifts, lighting shifts, and much shaking about during it’s journey from the grape to the home.

At home, the customer will open the bottle and start pouring.

A wine geek on the other hand, will take that bottle and put it into a dark, cold, still environment and worry about disturbing the bottle in some way, fearing that shaking it might cause unknown horrors to the wine.

This is what distinguishes a wine geek from a rational person.

Steve - this isn’t aimed at you. I just couldn’t resist. But if your wine is oxidized, it’s probably not because of shaking. OTOH, all that wine will definitely taste different from the way it did twelve years ago. Some might not be any good, some may have improved, but none will be exactly the same after such a long time. We don’t know you so we don’t know whether you’re familiar with aged wine, but assuming you are, and not having tasted the wine, oxidation doesn’t sound like something you’d expect either from age or from transportation. However, heat damage isn’t exactly the same as oxidation either.

Any chance the wine was damaged BEFORE it even got to the wine merchant? He may have stored damaged wine from 12 years.

Don’t think the wine was damaged before it was picked up by the wine merchant. I received it directly from the winery (Ridge in the case of Montebello) or from a reputable wine merchant. The wine was stored by me in a tempurature and humidity controlled wine cabinet, all bottles on there sides, with no exposure to sunlight. I had been drinking bottles from that collection out of that cabinet prior its pick up for storage and all drank well. This includes some of the Montebello, drunk at a young age, and it was fine. One of the individuals who tasted the wine with me when I opened it recently has an extensive collection of aged wine, including some of the same age and origen. There was no doubt in his mind that this wine was no longer good.

Sucks if the wines have been heat spoiled. Did you take any pictures of the wines in glass?

It seems clear that the storage conditions described by this merchant are not completely true. There could have been a power or A/C failure for some time allowing the area to become quite hot, or the wine was actually in poor storage condition for an extended period of time. I’m sorry. This is obviously a huge disappointment.