Do Bottles Need to "Quiet Down" After Shipping (re: Salon Champagne)?

[Gene_M]

@G. D y e r

What about thermal shock instead? I’m assuming the primary concern with mechanical jostling is driving the chemistry equilibrium one way or another by putting energy into the system. Well, heat is just jostling on a microscopic level.

If you can shake a bottle enough to raise it’s temp 1 - 2 D C that would be astounding.
Place a bottle or wine w/ a temp probe on paint shaker side by side w/ same bottle, same abient temp. Shake it overnight. I doubt this microscropic/molecular heating effect will be discreneable though the heat from the motor and shaker probably will do more to it than the moelcules jostling about unless you vibrate @ about 2.4 GHz (think microwaves) vs a few 100 Hz.

But yeah, if I think my wine is mistreated, I may take more pity on it or be harsher in my critique.

If it shows poorly, blame the provenance and treatement, if it shows well, it must be a strong/fine wine with admirable character to withstand such abuses. Salon is not a wimp in my book. It loves abuse and tastes better with age/expereince.

[G_D_y_e_r]

@Gene M.

@G. D y e r

What about thermal shock instead? I’m assuming the primary concern with mechanical jostling is driving the chemistry equilibrium one way or another by putting energy into the system. Well, heat is just jostling on a microscopic level.

If you can shake a bottle enough to raise it’s temp 1 - 2 D C that would be astounding.
Place a bottle or wine w/ a temp probe on paint shaker side by side w/ same bottle, same abient temp. Shake it overnight. I doubt this microscropic/molecular heating effect will be discreneable though the heat from the motor and shaker probably will do more to it than the moelcules jostling about unless you vibrate @ about 2.4 GHz (think microwaves) vs a few 100 Hz.

Ummmmm, I wasn’t claiming that mechanical shock leads to discernible heating. I think you misunderstood what I was saying, then clipped out the rest of my post to strengthen the misunderstanding.

Let me clarify: ambient temperature is highly variable during shipping. This is what I worry about, even with styro shippers.

[Frank_Martell]

Maybe the answer is: you don’t really need a definitive answer. Whether you subscribe to the travel-shock theory or not - you have the option of drinking a bottle that can not currently be experiencing that problem. All things being roughly equal, why would you drink the bottle that just traveled over a bottle that is sitting in your locker, ready to go?

I do believe in travel-shock, particularly as affects older wines. In all cases though, I believe the answer is “give the wine it’s best opportunity to show well”. That may amount to superstition at some level but it ain’t like '97 Salon is a cheapie.

F

[Jeremy_Holmes]

The main shock my bottles get is how quickly I open them after they arrive.

[David_Niederauer]

Whether you want to believe it or not bottle shock is not a myth. I agree more often than not the wine is not affected but I don’t want to take the chance. I let all new purchases sit in the cellar for at least 60 days before opening.

I mean—why not? You must have another bottle of something there hollering, “Drink me!”.

[Jon_Lawrence]

Scott,

Opened the Buckley bottle last night. Really tight for first 2 hours. Then become quite sweet up front but finished a bit strange (sour/gray/sulfuric). Only drank half the bottle. Recorked and tried again tonight, but dropped off significantly, so fed the drain.

Having friends over tomorrow night and will try the NYC bottle and another Buckley bottle, hopefully with better results.

Regards,

Jon

[scott_c]

@Jon Lawrence

Scott,

Opened the Buckley bottle last night. Really tight for first 2 hours. Then become quite sweet up front but finished a bit strange (sour/gray/sulfuric). Only drank half the bottle. Recorked and tried again tonight, but dropped off significantly, so fed the drain.

Having friends over tomorrow night and will try the NYC bottle and another Buckley bottle, hopefully with better results.

Regards,

Jon

Hmm…thanks for the report, and sorry to hear about the sub-par experience.

[Philip_Ente]

Several years ago, a Burgundy winemaker was visiting me in Santa Ynez Valley. We drove him and his family down to Los Angeles and retasted new bottles of the same wines tasted the day pror chez moi, they were clearly different

[Lisa_Mattson]

@scott c l a f f e e

My wife’s birthday is in a couple weeks and we’ll be going to dinner at her favorite restaurant here in DC. I want to take a bottle of 1997 Salon with us to drink before/during the meal.

I have two bottles. One was purchased a year ago from Wally’s and has been stored in my offsite locker since delivery. The other was purchased last week from JJ Buckley and will arrive tomorrow.

Because I may not visit the locker between now and the dinner, it would be much more convenient to take the JJ Buckley bottle with us. Is there any risk there? Any reason why the Wally’s bottle might show better, or am I just being paranoid?

Salon has such amazing acidity for decades that I would not be as concerned about travel shock on it as I might be with an older Delamotte, Krug or Bollinger. The weather has been cool out here on the West Coast, regardless. It may be “delicate” but the backbone is very strong. The '97 vintage is stunning, considered one of the greatest since the legendary 1926. Your wife should be thrilled. Wish my husband bought me Salon for my birthday. Cheers!

Lisa

[Robert.Fleming]

@David Niederauer

Whether you want to believe it or not [travel] shock is not a myth.

Dave, I edited your post to reflect what I think you meant to say, and ask: On what basis did you conclude that travel shock is real? Anything other than anecdotal evidence?

[todd_waldmann]

This is another of those many wine subjects that you’re not going to get a straight answer on. What everyone has posted thus far, is their anecdotal experiences & their opinions about travel shock. Good luck!

[Roger_Nellans]

@alan weinberg

@Roy Hersh

Tom is not alone in his belief.

… There’s also the consideration of muddling the wine if there’s considerable sediment, but that’s for older wines.
alan

Alan, could you expand a bit more on what you mean by ‘muddling’? Is this more than a temporary suspension of fine sediment, or are you suggesting some permanent type of condition?

[David_Niederauer]

@Robert.Fleming

@David Niederauer

Whether you want to believe it or not [travel] shock is not a myth.

Dave, I edited your post to reflect what I think you meant to say, and ask: On what basis did you conclude that travel shock is real? Anything other than anecdotal evidence?

Actually I did mean BOTTLE shock.

One instance I remember well: I was working a bottling line for Nils Venge (10-12 years ago). One of the wines was his chardonnay. At lunch time we filled a couple buckets right from the tank to drink with lunch. I remember that chardonnay to this day. Right out of the bucket it was one of the nicest chards I ever tasted and remains that to this day.

So the bottling day ends and I grab a half-dozen bottles of the chard to take home with me.

Two days later we were vacationing with some friends at Alisol Ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley. I brought two of the bottles with me. I wanted to show my buddies what a great chardonnay tastes like. I’m sure you can see this coming: It was AWFUL!!! UnDrinkable! The second bottles the same as the first. I’m convinced it wasn’t travel shock but I am 110% sure it was shock to the wine being put in a bottle.

A year later it wasn’t that good a wine that I remembered but it was very drinkable.

I really don’t think that a bottle of wine “traveling” in an automobile will have any shock if any. I do believe that wine taking the trip from winery to the consumers home is handled on or off trucks at least four times (most likely be warehousemen that don’t know what “handle with care” means) is likely to suffer some bottle shock. It will probably not be all that bad if opened immediately but I absolutely believe that a few weeks of rest in the cellar is a good thing and probably be MUCH better than the one opened immediately.

[Fred_Daniels]

There definitely is a difference. If the wine has sediment, it is thrown up into the wine during any kind of transport. This can greatly affect the taste of the wine.

Experiment: Take an Aubert chard that has rested in the cellar for a year. Decant half the bottle…shake up the remainder with the sediment. Compare glasses from each.

I find that wines with fine sediment that are older (pinot, some Italians) suffer greatly from the bitter sediment getting mixed into the bottle. I’ve had a six pack of burgundy that was 30 years old and opened one after a month the think “meh”, and then opened one three months later and it was the same wine only much more delicate and fruity. Opened one a year later (after resting quietly in the cellar) and it was the best of the three. You could really tell the difference as the bitterness of the sediment fell out of the wine…it was much “clearer” and integrated. The earlier wines had a bitter or astringent edge to them that competed with the fruit flavors.

I.e., I think it is a combination of shaking air bubbles through a wine during transport and disturbing the sediment.

[Robert.Fleming]

@David Niederauer

Actually I did mean BOTTLE shock.

Yes, well. As noted in post #17, bottle shock has been scientifically studied and verified. But this thread - at least, the original post - is about travel shock.

This language in your first post made me think you were addressing travel shock:

@David Niederauer

I let all new purchases sit in the cellar for at least 60 days before opening.

How many of the wines we purchase, whether direct from the winery or off a retailer’s shelf, were just bottled? Haven’t most if not all been in bottle long enough to recover from bottle shock before they reach the consumer?

[Peter_C]

Like a moth to flame, here I am again lol.

I can’t believe otherwise very intelligent people really believe that grape juice is somehow affected by being jostled about.

For those that believe, why doesn’t decanting a wine make it taste weird/shut down/off/not right/etc? Why doesn’t pouring it into your glass affect it in the same way a bump or two in the UPS truck would?

Does orange juice taste different if you let it sit in your fridge for a week after buying it? Coca Cola? Does your coffee taste different on your first sip inside your house versus in your mug in your car?

(Bottle shock, sure. Sediment being loosened, sure. Travel shock? No frickin’ way!)

[Paul_F_a_r_a_c_i]

As an individual who generally, if not quite exclusively, relies on science, I am extremely interested in any explanation for bottle/travel shock. Other than stirring up sediment in older bottles I’ve never seen a good explanation as to how jostling would affect a bottle in the short term but spontaneously resolve after some time resting.

[alan_weinberg]

@Roger Nellans

@alan weinberg

@Roy Hersh

Tom is not alone in his belief.

… There’s also the consideration of muddling the wine if there’s considerable sediment, but that’s for older wines.
alan

Alan, could you expand a bit more on what you mean by ‘muddling’? Is this more than a temporary suspension of fine sediment, or are you suggesting some permanent type of condition?

a lot of Burgundy has fine sediment which can take a month or more to settle when the bottle is disturbed–a different issue from bottle shock. For me, the sediment muddles the wine both visually and on the palate, adding a sour twang to the wine.
alan

[Paul_F_a_r_a_c_i]

@alan weinberg

a lot of Burgundy has fine sediment which can take a month or more to settle when the bottle is disturbed–a different issue from bottle shock. For me, the sediment muddles the wine both visually and on the palate, adding a sour twang to the wine.
alan

But absent sediment, how would travel affect the wine?

[Robert.Fleming]

@Paul F a r a c i

As an individual who generally, if not quite exclusively, relies on science, I am extremely interested in any explanation for bottle/travel shock.

Completely different things, one with a scientific explanation (based primarily on the introduction of oxygen during bottling), the other (so far as I can determine) with no scientific explanation at all.