Just as a point of reference, I bought a couple relatively inexpensive bottles from a vendor in NYC through wine-searcher which doesn’t give you the ability to comment or communicate with the vendor and they shipped the wine Wednesday and it arrived today; temps were in the 10-20s in NYC and 5-20 range here today with overnight lows in the single digits, and the wine was absolutely fine when it arrived. The bottles felt cold to the touch but the package didn’t feel overly cold, it felt warm compared to the outside temperatures, although I did retrieve it within 30 minutes of it being delivered. The wine was in cardboard.
I generally don’t have too much concern about shipping short distances in cold weather as long as the wine isn’t going to be sitting over the weekend at a depot where it may be in a trailer outside, or if the high temperatures are consistently going to be in the teens or below with lows in the low single digits, but certainly wouldn’t be shipping cross country. Others may have different experiences. Of course, if it had been delayed and sat over the weekend the wine may have been popsicles.
Probably I would have been much more careful with higher dollar bottles.
I had a problem with half bottles of Huet shipping within NJ. But it dipped to low single digits and might have been over a weekend. Corks pushed up .25”. Some day I’ll check in on the other 5 bottles.
I don’t sweat cold weather until it becomes extremely cold, meaning sustained single-digit temperatures. Otherwise, the wine isn’t exposed to that level of cold for much time at all.
I had wine freeze once out of thousands of bottles. It was a week of below 0 degrees Fahrenheit and the corks were pushed up. The wine is long since drunk up and most bottles belonged to a buddy who Ok’d shipping. So as long as it isn’t a super cold spell I don’t worry at all. If shipped 2/3 days I think it would be hard to freeze. This wine was shipped ground and sat who knows where over a weekend.
I agree. Anything above low teens is shipping weather for me from NYC. Ground shipping cross country is another beast though because the driver is going to park for the night multiple times. But if it’s coming from Socal, they will drive I-20 which should be fine. From Norcal coming across the Rockies, I would definitely be worried. But they may not take that route in the winter anyway.
I’m waiting on 4 bottles of pretty rare white burg that was shipped to me on Monday without my approval (I told the retailer that I would reach out to ship). They were supposed to arrive Wednesday and I am still waiting. Hard to think they were not on a trailer outside here in Missouri for at least 36 hours (tracking shows they landed here Wednesday night) and we’ve had lows in the single digits. If the box ever shows up, I’ll have another data point to add here.
I mostly avoid having wine shipped to me here in Wyoming until the predicted low winter temps are consistently in the high 20s or above, for the entire week, and for the likely shipping routes to get the wine here (Boise, SLC, across I-80 of Wyoming, if coming from west coast; I-80 and/or I-70 if coming from the east coast). My biggest concern with forecasted temps below that is that a storm and/or accident(s) may shut down travel on the route and the wine might sit in a stationary truck for a day or more with temps in the low 20s or teens. That approach typically gives me a window or three during our winter months where the temps warm enough for a shipment or three. And, generally I am in no particular hurry to otherwise risk it.
I ship in cold weather all the time as winter is when it is NOT hot in Florida! I’m ok so long as the chain of shipping stays above 30. And more comfy if in styro. Just got stuff from NYC yesterday.
Inspired by the recent thread on Levi Dalton’s podcast, I was just listening to the interview with Becky Wasserman. In it she references an old school Burgundy practice of leaving barrels out on frigid days when the vignerons through there was “excess water” in the wine (which I guess means insufficiently concentrated) in order to remove ice from the partially frozen barrel and improve the juice.
I’d never heard of the practice before but suggests that they at least didn’t think a partial freeze irreparably damages the wine.
never had a problem shipping here during the winter, but I avoid the excessively cold periods, maybe 1-2 weeks out of the year (and I live in a frigid part of the state). once did an experiment with a cheap wine, set it out in a styro box on the snow for 5 days. Wine was cold but not frozen. Expecting a SQN shipment soon, not sure that wine will ever freeze!
Really I think shipping during most winter days is safer than a lot of transitional spring/fall days when the wine can get cooked by a burst of heat.
Last spring a winery mistakenly shipped a case of my wine on a Monday, when forecasted high temps along the shipping route reached 100 degrees. The forecast turned out to be accurate, and the wine arrived that Thursday. All of the corks looked just fine. And, so far, the wine seems fine also (just opened one of the bottles last evening and it was wonderful; have consumed probably half the case at this point). That said, I don’t plan on changing up my approach of having wineries, etc., hold onto wine and not ship when forecasted temps are higher than 75 degrees or so.
Heat kills wine.
Cold is not an issue until you get into single digits or less for over 24 hours.
Of course there are lots of factors: How thick is the glass, shipped in cardboard or styrofoam, how big and fast are the temperature swings.
I remember one specific case of cold damaging wine. Early in my career I worked for a wholesaler. We received a container from California in February. It arrived almost two weeks after we expected it. It had been on a siding outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was an unholy mess of shattered glass and winesicles. A few cases in the middle of the container had not frozen completely.
I had cases of high end stuff shipped in cardboard (no stryo) get stranded near Salt Lake Ciry when a blizzard forced the interstate to close. The truck sat there for days in frigid weather, as the driver just up and abandoned the rig. When I finally got the wine like a week late, every bottle was ice, ice cold, but completely fine without any pushed corks, precipitated tartaric acids, etc.
I’ve pretty much never worried about shipping (non-German) wines in the winter since.
dang that is old school and perhaps not best practices. Concentration would include raising the ABV (as well as other aspects) but as a practical matter, seems like it would be really hard to pull ice chunks from the bunghole and also avoid a fair amount of oxidation throughout the whole process (the lower temp of the wine will create a large amount of headspace).
This happened to one of my shipments when the Interstate was closed down in the VA/MD area but in this case my client set pics of pushed out corks (about half the cork). VinoShipper/UPS sent us new labels at no cost and I replaced the bottles – they did side-by-sides and reported back that the once frozen wine was “flat” tasting with fewer aromatics compared to the second shipment.
I had a shipment of Kutch Chardonnay sit in the cold for too long and resulted in cold crystals in every bottle. A wine that I don’t believe is cold stabilized. Other years were fine. Just that one. Didnt effect taste, just needed to be careful pouring last drops or I decanted.
and perhaps not best practices. Concentration would include raising the ABV (as well as other aspects) but as a practical matter, seems like it would be really hard to pull ice chunks from the bunghole and also avoid a fair amount of oxidation throughout the whole process (the lower temp of the wine will create a large amount of headspace).