That’s quite a mix of wines and vintages which leads me to believe they are secondary market purchases. I would think that prior storage issues would be more likely than you brief stay in the high 70s. That being said, not every part of a garage will stay the same temperature, so that may have played a part.
I’ve stopped buying Burgundy on the secondary market due to provenance issues. You just can’t know, and no one wants to ask too many questions.
I worry about heat damage a lot but like others I would not think 79 degrees for a few days would do it.
Were the three cases shipped together? IMHO the wine is more likely to be heat damaged sitting in the sun inside a semi trailer or delivery van.
Tom Hill has wines that have been in a garage that gets hot in the summer and has held them for quite a while. Most of them are still quite drinkable.
Lots of great questions.
First, I’m looking hard for an alternate explanation, too. It’s really possible I’m just missing something (oh yeah I put them in the oven at 350 while making cookies! forgot!) or that maybe I’ve just had a crazy run of bad luck with what I opened.
Everything was purchased at release over various years. I moved everything from one storage unit to another – three cases of wine had to sit in my garage, on the floor. Nothing had been in weird conditions at any time beforehand. The thermometer was one of those digital things you can move around, so I put it on top of the top case and read the display when I walked by. Since the temperatures were moderate, I didn’t pay close enough attention and it’s possible a few days went by before I saw the 79 (79 point something, to be fair). And the thermometer saves high temperatures – 79 point something was the highest.
None of the wines were in styrofoam, as they were coming from, and going back into, storage, so they were in the smaller lays-flat boxes. (Less protection, right?) Also, they were stored next to a plugged-in fridge, and it’s possible the compressor or condensor or whatever might have belched out some heat at some point?
I’ve had 7 wines from the three boxes – 3 of them were definitely advanced to an extent I noticed (and I’m kind of an idiot about that sort of stuff). In other words, the porty taste, the ashy finish, and a little bit of wine creeping up the cork (though not much). Additionally one of them, the Jean Edwards, was flawed, but I think it might not have been heat-damaged, just flawed, as when I opened it up the reek of cork was knee-buckling. Never had a wine atually smell like cork so much.
People seem to agree that this is unusual and that I wasn’t a total dope to treat the wines this way. Mostly I’m kicking myself, but I’ll keep tasting through and see if maybe I just got a few bad bottles in a row.
Thanks for all your responses, even the brittle ones – I would feel cheated of the full berserker experience if I didn’t get some of those. 
Next to a refrigerator is a possible culprit.
Next time put them in the refrigerator 
I too wouldn’t have thought much about leaving some boxes in a space that I didn’t think would get above about 73.
Fridge would be my guess as well. If you had the thermometer on top it could have been much hotter at the bottom of the cases if the fridge ran a decent amount.
Glen if you had a flawed bottle of JEC, I will gladly replace it. Just message or email me - if we don’t have the same wine available I will send something comparable.
Karen