I shipped wine UPS ground yesterday from California to Chicago. Yesterday, Chicago’s weather changed from late fall to early winter. Highs are now in the low-mid 30’s, lows in the mid 20’s. Wednesday starts the bitter cold with 8 degrees F. Am I ok?
Unless the wines sit outdoors on the curb overnight, I say: yes, you are ok.
What Mike said. No worries.
I don’t think most freezers go down to 8F but I could be wrong.
Luckily cold “damage” is not a problem unless the corks are pushed up, which is a readily observable condition. If they aren’t pushed out the wine didn’t freeze or didn’t freeze enough to push the cork and should be fine. If the corks are partially pushed, drink the wines young. If they’re pushed all the way out then, well, the wine got pretty cold.
No shit? For some reason I always thought freezers were around 15-18F or some such. Learn something every day 
Our Traulsen stays between 0 and -4 degrees. Stuff freezes quickly in there!
Also the freezing temp of wine is well below 32. You should be OK.
Just because it’s cold doesn’t mean UPS has you wine sitting at that temp anyway.
Thanks all. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
The nice thing about cold versus heat is that you will KNOW if you have a problem. A problem would be defined as a winecicle that literally pushed the cork out and broken the seal, caused the wine to leak etc. Barring that no problem. And even if you have that, well just drink up soon.
With wine that is fried, it is not guaranteed to leak if the temp change is fast, but damage may well have been done. Heat is far more insidious than cold.
Serge,
Interesting point. Our location creates differ neuroses. My brother in-law lives in Boca and whenever I visit him I wonder “Man, having a cellar here must be a bitch” However, he is Mormon, so naturally, never mind…