I thought I would give some insight into direct shipping and how it all kind of works, especially in warmer weather like now.
Generally, you want to keep wines under 80F. A day or so over that temperature and you will start to effect the wine for the worse, although it may be hard to notice. Over 90F and you only need an hour or two and you are in real trouble. In the 70s, wine is fine for travel, although if you keep it in the mid to high 70s for months, they will begin to age prematurely.
With that in mind, when it gets to April and May, wineries are pretty much near the end of any reasonable shipping window and even then, they are best done on a state-by-state basis.
The best months to ship “ground” are November through February. March is mostly good, but you have to be careful. For air shipping, the window is wider and here is why.
I sent out some shipments to NYC this week. Max temps in NYC were expected to cap out at 75-79F. To send it “ground” would have failed though. The packages would travel through some really hot spots in a non-refridgerated truck and take over a week to reach the east coast. By that time, temps could be well over 80F at the final destination and even worse in the truck on the way.
In air shipping, it’s a whole different ballgame. For example, the 2012 Piper left the warehouse Monday at 4pm. It was 73F at the time in southern-Napa. But until it gets into the truck the wine is close to 58F in the warehouse. By the time the truck reaches the first hub in Oakland, the styro packaging protecting the wine and the ever dropping temps probably placed the wine at 60-62F.
It leaves the airport at night for air flight to either Memphis (FedEx) or Louisville (UPS). The cargo holds of those planes are pressurized but usually not temperature controlled. The temps inside the cargo hold can drop into the 30s. This will typically bring the wine down to 55F by the time it lands, usually very early in the morning.
Memphis and Louisville were 83-85F today. But the warehouses, although not temp controlled, have high ceilings and are probably a good 10-15F cooler than the outside temps. So by the time in leaves on another plane (again at night) the wine has risen to perhaps 63-65F. You only need to even slightly worry if the temps in those hubs are 92F or higher, outside. Other than that, you are probably good.
While on the next plane to the final hub, it drops again to maybe 58-62F in the bottles, which arrive in the early morning. In NYC for example, lets say it is 82F the next day. The wine sits on the truck til 3:30pm and is delivered to the office. Styro is a good insulator! Even if it peaks at 90F in the back of the truck at 3pm, it would be fine, as it takes hours at 90F to get wine inside the truck to that temp through all the styro. It might never actually get to 90F unless it is 100F outside. My guess is, at worst, it would arrive at the final destination at 70F in my example. It might keep slowly rising to room temp (72-73F) if it sits in the office all day (or overnight) before someone takes it home.
I threw ice packs in every single shipment on Monday, even Oregon, where it is cool. Ice packs last 48 hours, max. They really will do little good at all on day 3, or later, when they arrive in NYC, and most likely the ice packs will be box temperature by then. But what you REALLY need ice for is the Hub in Memphis or Louisville, not the end point. Also, most ice packs are really a gel, not ice. And they don’t “sweat” as they warm up, so the labels of wines are usually protected.
I tested a shipment to a state with 98F temps once in September a few years ago. We put in a digital thermometer that sent data to a computer of the temp of the wine all the way on its 2-day air journey. The wine never exceeded 78F at any point and spent most of the trip under 70F. Not ideal, but it goes to show that if one uses ice packs and goes by air, you probably have avoided damaging the wine even in harsh situations.
Another thing that freaks people out is missing the first delivery attempt. That is not usually that bad. The back of UPS trucks are not ovens like the back of 18-wheelers. They do not get any hotter than the outside temps, usually. And getting 85F through styro and glass is not easy. If you miss the first signature then it goes back into the truck (in our example at 4pm) and then heads back to the local office, where it is stored indoors. Temps are already dropping as it drives back to the station. Unless we are talking Arizona or Texas in summer, this will likely be in the 60s. low 70’s max. You might get the wine close to daytime temps the second day, but I bet not.
Sometimes one feels a bottle and thinks… oh no, it feels warm. You might be surprised. If you were to pop the cork and stick a thermometer in, it would almost always be under 80F.
Also, sometimes one will see some wine going up the side of the cork and thinks “It got heat damaged.” Again, most likely not. Bottling lines are fast machines and they fill the bottle in a couple of seconds. It is very possible that some wine got in the neck and dried there. Also, if the cork is not perfectly sized for the wine, when wine first gets bottled, pressure can cause some wine to occasionally creep on the neck, especially if the case of wine is immediately turned upside down on the pallet, post-bottling. I was taught to stack the wines right side up for a few hours, then turn them over, to better avoid that. If you see some wine creeping up just one small part of the cork, you are probably fine. If the whole cork looks red, thats a real problem. Also, wine at the top of the cork could also be from bottling, not heat.
Also, about 1 in 10 bottles has the cork either pushed a millimeter too far in or too far out. About 1 in a 5000 bottles might not even have a cork! I’ve seen that a couple of times too. But just because a cork is slightly elevated does not mean that the wine got hot and pushed it out. Bottling machines are imperfect.
For the most part, my summary is…
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If you want to send ground shipping outside of CA, OR and WA (where ground is 1-3 days, anyway), then you want to ship from Nov- Feb and you are almost always good.
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With air (2 or 3 day) than you can go from Oct-May, as long as you are careful about temps. With 3-day air, it is the same as 2-day but sits in either the original hub or final hub an extra day.
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Avoid final destination estimated temps above 79F. That way, even if they are wrong, it is likely they are wrong by only 5 degrees maybe. Don’t intentionally ship to final destinations above 85F.
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Ice packs do wonders to avoid heat at the primary southern Hubs for Fed-Ex and UPS. But they only last 48 hours. They are useless in shipping beyond 2 days, typically.
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Make sure to be there and sign for it the first attempt, if you can. Don’t panic if you don’t, but it is better to get it the first time around.
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If your wine has an elevated cork or some wine stains up the side, don’t panic. If it is heat damaged, you will know by taste more than by cork.
Sometimes wine can get heat damaged. It does happen. I wonder how many Bordeaux wines all these years that came over on un-refridgerated shipping containers by ocean, taking a month-plus, were heat damaged? Still, a lot of them tasted pretty darned good to me. It is actually not easy to heat damage a wine.
If you want to really take control, whenever you enter an order online, put in the comments section or instructions section… “SHIP IN NOVEMBER ONLY”. Or January, etc. That will work almost every time. Fulfillment centers get spreadsheets from the winery for all shipments and both the winery and the fulfillment center usually catch such instructions before they go out.
Hope this gives a little insight!