There’s been no shortage of discussion around travel shock on the board. A few weeks I took a trip out to Portland, OR and decided to use that opportunity conduct a small experiment of my own.
I took two champagne bottles from the same case (NV Laherte Frères BdB Brut Nature 03/21 disg.), travelled with one to Portland and back and the other stayed in the cellar. The day after my return to New York I opened both and did a small triangle test with some friends who had not travelled. Some really interesting results that can be seen below.
Triangle 1 (taster 1): taster correctly picked out the different wine in triangle test. Taster guessed it was the non-travelled wine, noting that sample was more expressive than the other two. Guess turned out incorrect and the ‘more expressive’ wine was the travelled champagne and the two ‘muted’ wines were the control.
Triangle 2 (taster 1): failed to pick out the different wine
Triangle 3 (taster 2): failed to pick out the different wine
Triangle 4 (taster 2): failed to pick out the different wine
Triangle 5 (taster 3): taster correctly picked out the different wine in triangle test. Taster guessed it was the non-travelled wine, noting that sample was more expressive than the other two. Guess turned out incorrect and the ‘more expressive’ wine was the travelled champagne and the two ‘muted’ wines were the control.
Triangle 6 (taster 4): failed to pick out the different wine
Side-by-side 1 (taster 5): Taster preferred the travelled wine, noting the sample was more expressive. Incorrectly guessed that sample was the non-travelled wine.
Side-by-side 1 (taster 6): Taster preferred the non-travelled wine, noting the sample was more expressive. Correctly guessed it was the non-travelled wine.
I have no idea where or when the concept of travel shock started, but folks have been debating it on Berserkers pretty much since the forum started, and even way before that. No shortage of anecdotal examples from folks taking either position.
Very random, but also a very small sample size.
For what it’s worth I was taster 2 in the results I listed, so I was unable to pick out the different wine both times. Maybe there’s some truth to the claim that one’s sensory abilities get affected when they travel, or maybe I just not sensitive to it. Who knows.
Either way does make me start reviewing my perhaps overly careful position on not opening wine immediately after it arrives. I also want to do experiments like this again, both with different wines and more folks.
It was a bit random, or as random as you can try to get with only a few people. I wanted to also taste so I had a friend randomly pour me the triangle test. I forget which wines were poured, both on both occasions where I tried it, I incorrectly guessed the different wine. I didn’t jot down what wines were poured on the trials where people were unable to pick out the different wine. The wine where they were able to correctly identify it, they got two controls and one travelled. It was a far cry from a properly done study.
Cool little test, thanks. And interesting, because those who do believe in travel shock generally seem to say that Champagne is even more affected than still wines.
Yes. So where two of the samples are the same and one is different and the taster sees if they can pick out the one that’s different.
I forgot to pay attention to that when I was pouring the first set of triangle tests (Trial 1 and 2). I walked away from the table as my friend poured mine, but when we revealed the wines, he noted that when he poured mine, the wine that was eventually revealed to be the travelled wine had significantly more aggressive mousse. When we did the rest of the trials about an hour later, there was no visual difference between any of the wines.
The control clearly aged longer due to relativistic effects . On average, my own experience has slightly more often been that wines open up due to travel, sometimes shockingly so, most noticeably with younger wines.
I am not a patient person. I have often opened wines, that has travelled through Europe, less than an hour after receiving them .
Really haven’t had any noticeable issues where i thought that the same wine a week or month+ later was much different. This has mainly been young wines though.
When Jonas Tofterup did his MW research paper, while the sensory panel didn’t find a difference in wines travelled, chemical analysis of the wines did show that wines that travelled via air had much lower levels of free SO2 in bottles. That could be a contributing factor to helping your travelled wines ‘open up’.
There’s not enough data to make any meaningful conclusions from my experiment. Thought it was interesting to see that multiple folks preferred the traveled wine and found it more expressive. My friend’s comments on the travelled wine showing a more aggressive mousse also tracks given the travelled wine was shaken up a lot more. I’d posit the more aggressive petillance helped push up more of the volatile aromatic compounds in the wine.
I should also note, all tasters said whatever differences they found in the wines were extremely marginal at best and they overall both showed well.
I do want to do a similar experiment again. Currently thinking of maybe an older white or sparkling. Older reds would be interesting as well, but there’s potential sediment to consider as well in that scenario. I’ll have to do a bit of thinking as to which wine to do next.
Many people in trade report that the wines don’t taste great when the first land, and many will not show them to customers or deliver them until they’ve been here for a few weeks or a month, when they taste better – and more like they did in the producers’ cellars.
If this is a fallacy, it’s an expensive one, because it means you have working capital tied up in inventory. Other things being equal (i.e., absent travel shock), they’d have every incentive to provide samples and deliver the wines ASAP.
And yet producers do tons of tastings (UGC, La Paulee, etc.) where they ship or carry wines to a venue and open them as soon as the day they arrive. Are those producers pouring wines that are sub-par when tasted?
this statement is vague enough to wiggle out of, but producers and importers send samples all over the world all the time to critics and buyers without much care for how and when they’re tasted.
. On average, my own experience has slightly more often been that wines open up due to travel, sometimes shockingly so, most noticeably with younger wines.
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