Interesting heat damage data point

I pulled a half bottle of 17 cuvee tardive out of my eurocave sowine and put it next to it bc I wanted to chill something else. I didn’t realize that the exhaust for the sowine blew directly out on where I put the bottle and left it there for a couple days. When I came to check on it, it was 90 degrees.

I figured it’d be toast but put it in the fridge and served it later that day at ~45F and it tasted like any of the other bottles of it that I’ve had.

I would imagine Beaujolais isn’t the hardiest wine and maybe the damage would’ve hurt its aging potential but it was just fine.

Interesting indeed. I don’t have anything at that extreme. However when I lived in NOLA my daily and not-quite-daily wines were stored at room temperature, which was usually 73-75 for a good chunk of the year.

3 years of that and none of the wines tasted advanced in comparison to their counterparts that were chilled. Maybe not all wine but in general wine is sturdier than we think.

I would not try that with an expensive bottle.

Maybe your palate is toast neener

My (limited) experience with recently heat damaged wine was that they were fine short unless really cooked, but wouldnt age well

Yes, I think some types of heat damage take time to show up.

-Al

My dad stored wine in a spare room at his home for nearly 15 years, many of which were high end Napa cabs bought from the winery. I have had some of those bottle against similarly direct-purchased and 55 degree cellared bottles. I do think there is a difference. Not glaring, perhaps, but maybe a bit more advancement than a long cellared bottle. And, you know, science and all, there should be.

Now I have a bigger question. Can one of you winemakers bottle a wine with a hair more head space so I can immediately freeze a bottle of wine and just keep it in my freezer for a couple of decades before thawing it and pouring it and seeing how fresh it is?

Who serves wine at 45F?

It was probably closer to 55, it was whatever the white wine setting on the sowine is.

Have a friend who stored his wine in ambient Hawaii weather. (Underneath his house) We are talking bordeaux, cali cabs, cali pinot and some amarones and others. Mid 1990’s into the 2000’s. For me these wines always showed dusty, muted fruit, no freshness at all. Stripped of sensual pleasure and interest. A shame. I’ve had them in my 63 degree storage the past ten years.

Interesting. I’d have thought that the move from 90 degrees to 45 might have had as much of an impact as the 90 degrees alone. The claim is that rapidly changing temp is as much a problem as hi temp. Happy to hear this wine was good to drink but I also suspect the probs would have been more pronounced with time

As Al mentiones, heat damage typically doesn’t present itself immedietly.
Bottle should be fine to drink now or shortly, but wouldn’t put it back in the cellar long-term.

I’ve definitely had wine that was cooked and undrinkable; I was afraid this would be the case here.

This also goes to show how much ‘variation’ there is in anything related to wines - and how it truly is impossible to ‘predict’ how a wine will show without opening the bottle and actually drinking it.

There is no doubt that subjecting a wine to elevated temperatures is far from ideal - but is it ‘harmful’? Depends upon the type of wine, how long it was exposed, how shortly thereafter you consume, etc. Love these threads . . .

Cheers!