I have the correct Vino case so the bottles will be protected and I do not anticipate any extreme temp issues. The problem is the shaking/vibration and temperature variations on the plane and beyond. I am concerned that I will temporarily or permanently damage these bottles. Supposedly, the rule of thumb is you are supposed to wait 1-2 weeks for bottles to settle before opening, I do not have that luxury as we want to drink them on the trip. I would like to bring bottles that are 15-20 years old. Should I limit it to younger bottles? Any one have opinons/experience with this?
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We typically travel with young white Burgs and Champagne. If the plan is for older reds, we ship a few weeks in advance. Too much risk otherwise.
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Personally I don’t even touch wine within a few weeks of being delivered via London City Bond in a temp-controlled van, I can’t possibly think that flying with bottles and then drinking them is a good idea if they’re serious wines. YMMV.
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Am I wrong? So many wines were off the first day of arrival that I just stopped trying…
Sorry, but simply a bad idea. If you’re planning on drinking them on the trip, it doesn’t matter if the damage is temporary or permanent.
15 - 20 years is a gray area for this, but why put your fine wine at risk? Drink something else.
If shaking, etc., causes permanent damage, how does any wine get to the US undamaged - or any wine get to the east coast from the west coach undamaged.
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Risk of permanent damage is low, especially if flying to/from cool locations.
Agree with others, unless you like cloudy wines full of sediment I’d stick to something young.
Personally, I think the risk is overstated. Once brought an 1862 Port to share with Dominic Symington. Gave it a week and it was fine.
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Examine the glass for any cracks and check that the cork is firmly seated and go for it. It’ll probably be fine.
+1
Why would shaking (or pretty much anything short of cracking the bottle itself) hurt the wine?
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Yet another pernicious, unscientific wine myth that gets in the way of people enjoying wine.
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You don’t think the best condition is when the wine has not moved from the cellars of the winemaker?
In the grand scheme of things, we make do, because we live where we live and wine is still pretty delicious. And the loss from global shipping may be as small as tiny fractions of a percentage point of the wine’s full potential, which may or may not be perceptible in any given bottle, for all sorts of reasons. But it all adds up.
At the end of the day, wine is an agricultural product.
Well, because everyone knows you should never shake a bottle of salad dressing or orange juice; completely destroys the molecular integrity.
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Tambourine players are dying left and right.
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I seem to recall from prior threads that bottle shock is real and travel shock (besides sediment moving around) isn’t.
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Because it doesn’t.
Does 15-20 year old Burg have much fine sediment? I’ve never observed that.
Traveling with old Barolo or something, I get that it would take a week or more for the sediment to settle again. 2000s Burgundy? That should be fine.
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Though part of the challenge for @AndreaHoffman will be that, for some people, once you think travel shock is real, then you are likely to perceive that it occurs. “Two of the bottles I opened on the trip weren’t as good as I expected, it must be travel shock!”
And then that becomes the confirmation bias loop as you move ahead. You now think that you have learned from your experience that travel shock is real.
I wish every serious wine person got to attend a few blind tastings of just-arrived versus well-rested bottles of the same wine, realize they can’t tell the two apart, and then we could all just stay out of the confirmation bias loop that perpetuates travel shock.
But that isn’t going to happen, so I guess everyone will just pick the camp they want to live in. Which, of course, is their prerogative.
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Travel shock is a myth. Shaking up sediment is real tho.
If u can instantly settle the sediment, then no issue but physics says u can’t… So stick to younger/less sediment wines
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Have you experienced much sediment in 15-20 year old Burg?
And is it fine cloudy sediment, or just the types of solids that will settle if the bottle sits upright for an hour or two?
This would be 2004-2009 vintages.
I don’t want to sound definitive because I drink a lot less Burg than some folks around here, but I haven’t noticed that being a problem. 40 year old Burg, okay, that’s different.
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2004-2009 oh absolutely. I actually have seen sediment in quite a few 2010-2015ish bottles.
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