Judging from prior posts, many of us are concerned about wineries or retail dealers who ship to us during hot weather, perhaps inadvertently.
But I am curious about shipments from wineries to distributors and from distributors to retailers. When my local shop sends me an email today (August 11 and 95 degrees here in Oregon) advertising that they just received a shipment of ABC California wine, how did it get to the retailer? And how did it get to the distributor? Refrigerated trucks? Nighttime trucking? Shipped last spring? Inquiring minds want to know . . .
Phil Jones
Portland, OR
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Most reputable distributors use refrigerated trucks to pick up their wine in CA for transport, then store in their temp. controlled warehouse, where orders are then loaded and delivered to retail/restaurants in their own refer trucks. All of the distributors I’ve worked with in the US operate this way.
It’s your job as a consumer to make sure the retailer you are buying your wine from ALSO treats the wine this way in their store. Just ask.
From producer to wholesaler/distributor I’m not sure, but I know for a fact that nothing like all the trucks making local deliveries to retail accounts are refrigerated, certainly not in this area, and we have hot summers and lots of traffic jams; I asked the question in the Wine Pimps forum a year or two ago and from the responses from retailers it seems that refrigeration isn’t universal, or even the norm in some areas. Still. Today, in 2014, after years of discussion about proper care and handling of wine.
There are so many opportunities for wine to be exposed to high temperatures along the supply chain that it is amazing we don’t find more cooked wine out there. Assuming the winery/importer was responsible in shipping in a refrigerated container to the local distributor, many distributors don’t use refrigerated warehouses. Even if they do, the delivery from warehouse to retail or restaurant can also be risky. I refused a delivery of 2000 Musar last summer because the rep who delivered it had left it in his trunk all day in 95+ degree heat; the bottles were hot to the touch when he brought them in. They were replaced, but no doubt those hot bottles went back to their warehouse to be delivered another day to someone else. Sadly, one would think there would be more competence from a professional in the business. Hopefully this is the exception, rather than the rule.
Even at some retail outlets, wines can be exposed to higher temperatures. Last week I was in Redding and I checked out a discount warehouse. The outside temperature was 101 degrees, while inside the store it seemed to be in the 78-80 degree range. I touched a bottle and it was slightly cool, no worries. The wines are priced to move, and as long as they do at a reasonable pace, I think its okay. They use a swamp cooler to save money, but I am not sure how effective that might be on a blazing summer day in Redding where temperatures can reach 115+. Perhaps they turn on the AC during extreme days?
Southern in Oregon does not own one refrigerated van or box truck.
They told me it is not in their budget.
I always will call at the warehouse if the temperatures are above seventy degrees.
There’s several major wine distributors in CA that ship refrigerated. Anything shipped by common carrier (UPS etc) is not.
That said, I had a couple of samples sent to me by CC a month or so back that arrived in Styro after 3pm still cool to the touch. Drank one that evening and it was absolutely fine…Styro shippers are pretty amazing.
Every distributor we use collects and transports in refrigerated trucks.
UPS now offers a somewhat refrigerated shipping option from the west coast to some states. Wine goes to Oakland, then gets loaded on a refrigerated truck for the trip across country. It gets delivered in regular trucks once there, though, so along with the trip to Oakland, there is the threat of being exposed to high heat. Price is a very reasonable $10 addition! Caveat: this service does not go to all states…
Peter Rosback
Sineann
You still have to worry about the last leg of the delivery. If it arrives at the hub during hot weather it still gets exposed to extreme temps.
How does the wine get to Oakland?
I imply from your post that it is non-refrigerated.
The I5 corridor (Redding and southward) is a disaster for ground shipped wine.
Patrick
It’s only amazing in the context of what the wine storage industry, and all the wine geeks around us who have bought into it heavily and thus advocate for it, and all the wineries who put CYA cards in your shipment about how to store wine in dark places on its side at 55 degrees, want us to believe about how fragile wine is. I think you’ve answered your own question in a way – how often do you buy a wine at retail and find it to be cooked?
I know a guy with a family liquor/wine distributor business. He said at one point, they invested in air conditioning all the warehouses where the wine sat before delivery to retailers. The cost ended up eating up all their profits, and nobody could discern any difference in the product, so they abandoned it.
Chris,
Given the choice, are you going to buy the bottles that have been kept at 80+ degrees or the bottles that have been kept at 65 degrees?
I’ll give you a more pertinent question: how much would you be willing to bet you could discern in a blind tasting the bottles that were shipped at 80+ degrees from the bottles of the same wine that were shipped at 65 degrees?
Shipped across the country by truck (3 to 4 days), or by boat from Europe (a week maybe)? Perhaps I could tell, perhaps not, but I’ve had tired wines that I know were stored poorly so there’s no doubt in my mind that wines can be damaged over time by poor conditions. I’d like to increase my odds of getting the best bottles possible.
But let’s get back to my question: Are you saying that it’s a matter of complete indifference to you how the wines you buy have been shipped and stored? Do you keep wines at home any old where? In the living room? In a little rack above the refrigerator??
Frank, I never said I had complete indifference to temperature, or that it could not ever make a difference in wine. The higher the temperature for the longer the time, the more likely it could end up making a difference in your glass.
But I was just challenging Joy’s assumption when she wrote, “There are so many opportunities for wine to be exposed to high temperatures along the supply chain that it is amazing we don’t find more cooked wine out there.”
The reason it seems amazing to her is, in my personal opinion, because we wine geeks have such an exaggerated belief in the affect of temperature on wine.
Have you raised young kids in the last 15 years or so? If you have, you know that the #1 best marketing device is fear. Car seats, flame retardent pajamas, helmets, baby monitors, toilet locks, coffee table bumpers, bath thermometers, etc etc. If you can make anxious moms fret that they’re putting the baby at risk by not having your product, you are going to sell a LOT of product.
I think we’ve let ourselves get oversold on the idea of 55 degrees all the time for wine in the same way. We’ve let ourselves become fearful of what might happen to our precious babies (bottles), because the voices out there tell us they’re at great risk if they’re not sideways in the dark at 55 degrees and 70 percent humidity at all times. I’ve seen posts on WB where people ask if taking a wine out of storage and leaving it on the counter for a week might damage the wine!
So we fork over five figures for these monstrosities, plus countless more on electricity and repairs. Then, once we’ve done that, we want to believe that we didn’t spend all that money foolishly, so we become advocates for it, and subtly apply stress to others about them storing their wine in the downstairs hallway closet. And the cycle continues.
I’m being a little glib and lighthearted here – don’t take my comments as an insult, please – but I just think we’re underestimating how hardy wine (and our kids) are. People used to age great wines successfully in the past without Eurocaves or Legend Cellars. How wickedly delightful would it be to make the CEOs of Eurocave, Vinotemp and Le Cache do a blind tasting between 2004 Bordeaux that’s been in the storage cabinet versus 2004 Bordeaux that’s been in the downstairs hall closet?
Having said all of that, I’m not immune to it myself. I have two storage cabinets that hold 800 bottles, plus many hundreds of bottles in offsite storage at Legend Cellars. And we had too many baby safety gadgets around the house, if not quite as many as others around us did. So no boastfulness on my part, but I do try to see through the marketing fog anyways just for my sanity.
It’s a difficult subject because like a lot of things, we’re dealing with thresholds. Toxins are measured by thresholds by the EPA. Below the threshold - likely safe. Over it? Potentially serious harm or death.
There’s no doubt that heat can ruin wine, but the question is at what point? Where’s the threshold? Frankly I don’t think we know. I absolutely agree that wine is tougher than we think, but since we know there’s a limit we tend to be conservative. That’s not just in wine, but in so many other things as well.
Great point, Taylor.
It would be tough to quantify the measure of high temperature’s damage to wine on a broad scale, because not every wine will react the same way. Some wines are much more sturdy than others depending on their age and type. The amount of time exposed to heat is the primary factor. You’d have to do an experiment with several bottles of the same wine, leaving them at high temps for different lengths of time to see exactly at what point the damage will occur.
My guess is that most of us don’t find many cooked bottles because we shop at reputable retailers who care about proper wine storage (and the way their distributors handle the wine). The average person who isn’t a wine geek probably wouldn’t even notice a cooked wine, let alone other flaws, so perhaps it isn’t often brought to light.