I would drive it. Google maps puts this at a little over 13 hours, with about an hour delay for traffic. This is easily a 15-16 hour drive. It would be worth the long day to me to take care of my wine and not pay over $2K to get it there. I would never ship through that area unrefrigerated in the summer, even overnight.
Vegas to DFW in 1998 for me nonstop. Right at 24 hours with snow stoppages.
Edit: no stops for sleep.
Well, there was an unusual urgency to that drive because we flew my wife’s family in from Maui to vacation with us. Their flight landed the next day, and we couldn’t get ourselves another flight until 3 days later because of the ice storm. We had to pick up the rental van and the keys to the rental house before picking them up. Plus, I had done it twice before solo - once in my own car, and once in the moving truck when my parents relocated to Florida. No biggie as I used to drive a delivery truck (furniture / mattresses) back when my chest was actually bigger than my stomach.
We now do it over 2 days. Leaving at 6 PM helps avoid the DC traffic snarls, and we book a room in the Carolinas.
I would not really trust anything other than:
- driving myself
- dedicated temp controlled point to point shipping with climate controlled storage at both ends. Expensive.
- store locally until winter and then see if you can ship a cheaper way
Assuming these are valuable bottles and you want to ensure they are “cold chained”.
Definitely considering the driving, especially if there are other things like plants that could go along. But it’s still no slam dunk as far as heat management and realistically would need to happen while I’m still on my current job.
The move does have reimbursement for relocation expenses. But there is a cap that I know we’ll hit. Point-to-point climate controlled is OK in this respect but will eat into some other item for sure.
The last option–store then ship–seems like the best possibility. I’m not sure wine storage is a ‘thing’ in Albuquerque. Maybe Santa Fe has an option. This would be the easiest thing to do if we can find a decent ‘node’ on the NM end.
I have a friend who retired from NJ to Maine, moving up there in August. He loaded up an uninsulated U-Haul trailer from his cellar at 7 am and drove straight up there. He said the wine was still cool when he arrived at the end of the day.
Albuquerque to Santa Barbara is further, and the dessert much hotter, but if you kept it in an air conditioned SUV and drove straight (13 hours according to Google maps), I bet you’d be OK.
Guys, we’re really missing the obvious answer here. I know of a chicken company that is local to your area, that uses refrigerated trucks, and that is known to carry other goods. I am sure they could assist.
I’f you can’t find cost efficient overnight or even 2 night shipping using styros (they stay cool a long time), do you have any friends in Albuquerque with basements (sorry, don’t know if NM has basements)? 12 cases doesn’t take up much space, so I’d ask a friend to store it for me, until I come back to visit (would you ever return for a visit?). That way, you fly 1 way, rent a car and drive back with wine.
If you have to move it before you move in 3 months, then I’d rent a car/truck for a 3 day weekend. Drive there 1 day with wine and any other delicate or super valuables you might not trust to a moving van, unload the next morning and either head back immediately or wait to drive back the 3rd day. For the cost of a weekend rental I’d prefer the miles on it than my own car. Rental/ gas/ hotel/food costs would be a fraction of the prices you mention and you’d have some extra peace of mind knowing you’re handling it all. Just the wasted weekend unfortunately.
FWIW - on the thread drift - it’s quite common for Canadians living in Ontario & Quebec to drive to FLA for either Winter or Spring break in 1 shot, except for food/gas/ bio breaks . Usually 18-24 hours.
Last time we drove south (2009 or 2010) we split each trip into 2 days because of the kids. Longest days both ways were 16 hours, but I like highway driving.
That’s what I would do.
I’ve moved mine across town, and I brought it 10-12 cases at a time in the back of an SUV w/the AC full blast.
Worked fine.
After a certain age, and depending on your overall health, you need to think long and hard about Deep Venous Thrombosis [DVTs].
I’ve known people to dose themselves up on Warfarin/Heparin before taking a long Trans-Atlantic or Trans-Pacific plane flight.
Again, easy for the younger crowd, not so great for most retirees. Also, you’ll need to move the twelve cases into the motel room before you go to sleep, and then back out to the van again before you leave. Easy [or maybe not fatal] for the younger crowd, not so great for most retirees.
If you want to try for two hard days on normal hours, then you could put the wine on ice - get big styrofoam or Igloo containers - put the ice in its own plastic garbage bags, and put the wine in its own plastic garbage bags, and then the labels won’t get ruined. [I’d double bag each if I were really worried about the labels.]
Another possibility would be a van with a very large gas/diesel tank, which had a locking mechanism that allowed the car to continue running, but which stayed securely locked while you were sleeping, and then you could keep the air-conditioning running while you slept. But that’s starting to cross the line from consumer- to commercial-grade equipment. Many of the RVs have that feature, though - you could look around and try to find an inexpensive RV rental which could safely provide overnight air-conditioning, and quality locked doors [which can’t be jimmied open with a hairpin].
At some point, however, this would need to be something like DRC or Haut Brion or JJ Prum auction wines for it to be worth the effort.
Table wine certainly wouldn’t be worth it.
Also, if you do ice, then you’ll almost certainly need new ice every day, which is another huge hassle.
Although maybe the second day you could just dump the melted ice and use air-conditioning alone.
For trips of two-nights/three-days or more, changing the ice each day is a ton of work.
Renting an RV, and staying in a quality RV camp overnight [maybe at a National Park or similar], could be a lot of fun.
But then you’d have to look at the per-mile fee on the RV rental. A round trip of 1800 miles might have astronomical per-mile fees.
Better call Saul
Well, I would probably fly back out after leaving the family, rent a truck with a/c, and remember that dry ice is your friend. Stuff works amazingly well – your biggest problems will be (a) finding enough to buy and (b) making sure the wine doesn’t freeze
I can drive it for $1200 and drop it off.
2014 Honda Pilot. AC on high.
Dry ice can be great stuff, but not best idea from a safety standpoint in a closed environment like a car (would be fine in a separate truck compartment, but that wouldn’t be ACed).
If you start with cellar temp bottles, regular AC should keep wine quite safe (especially if you pack in styro shipper, or in coolers, or just mass the wine and cover with a quilt).
A normal person shouldn’t have to worry about DVT from a drive, but always wise to do a stop/walkaround every couple hours on a long drive.
Do this. Advantage is great. They moved our 800 bottle collection from California to Maine. You don’t need specialized wine logistics at the destination. All you need is access to a loading dock (call around to storage places – some will let you use one for free, others will charge you $25-50) where they can drop it off.
I moved 300 bottles 700 miles in an SUV - they all fit in one SUV. The issue is that 700 miles is driveable in one day, so I didn’t have to worry about stopping at a hotel to sleep. A lunch stop wouldn’t affect it at all. I guess that depends on what the nighttime temps are going to be like.
6 weeks from now? That’s only about 3 bottles a day. Grab a corkscrew and some glasses and get to work!
Agree with the drive it crowd. Do it on a weekend before you move (or after, if you have friends where you could leave the wine for a month). Easy to drive in one day in a rented SUV, then fly back on Sunday morning. Total cost around $1,000 even for two people. We used to drive 30-35 cases in large SUV’s from San Francisco to Colorado regularly. Just leave A/C on and block out the windows on the sunny sides.