Are you sure that mine was the argument from authority, instead of yours?
I think the burden of proof is on the affirmative case. I can say I would, without hesitation, wager significant amounts of my own money in a blind tasting of you and three wine experts of your choosing, trying to identify the three bottles of WS pinot that arrived in UPS from them yesterday versus the three bottles of the same WS pinot that arrived two months ago. How confident would you be wagering on that?
I’d take you up on that if it were shipped to the East Coast by ground (in moderate weather of course) (air to SoCal is no test at all) and the test was whether a difference could be detected tasting blindly. For all I know, the travelling bottle might be better in some cases. This would be fun!
I know if you shake a bottle of white vigorously and then pour, there’s a lot of air permeated throughout the wine which, to me, changes the mouthfeel of the wine. I can’t speak to any chemical changes, but physical movement does have an effect.
Damn. Point to Chris.
It’s been several months since we thrashed that one completely, maybe it’s time for another 8 pages?
Travel shock increases as the wine gets older, so yep, I never notice it.
The problem with blind tasting is that you need to overcome bottle variation, and for a group of hobbyists, that’s a lot of bottles. I’d pick 4 wines, different varieties, 6 bottles of each. Fill a case with 4 sets of 3 and ship it across country to someone, then have them ship it back. The other 4 sets of 3 rest in the cellar. Blind taste all 24 bottles and see if there’s any statistical significance in calling the “shocked” bottles.
I linked that discussion up early in this thread. Despite some disagreements, it was a very productive thread.
One big takeaway for me from that thread is that many of us mean different things when we use the expression, which is part of the reason for different views. I believe you were referring to wines at the end of their long, multi-stage voyage from overseas to the US. Many others were referring to wine that was shipped for a couple of days domestically or checked into cargo on their flight somewhere. Others were referring to older wines having sediment stirred up, and still others were considering the possibility of heat or cold damage in transit.
I appreciated your contributions to that earlier thread, and thanks again. While I personally have no hesitation to open wines that were recently in transit, including bottles that came with me on a flight to somewhere that landed a few hours ago (unless it’s an old bottle and shaken up sediment is a concern), everyone should of course go with what they believe.
+1
And +1 to the wine as a living thing thing. Young wines can be very active. Both on their own or in reaction to external stimuli they can be very active with cyclical bonding and unbonding of various molecules, some of which are muting and unmuting various characteristics. Any winemaker knows the same wine from the exact same barrel can taste completely different a few days apart. Pouring young wines at an event or in the tasting room or whatever you’ll find that odd showing bottle. To me, simply writing that off as “bottle variation” is a wild assumption. More likely it’s just at an extreme point is a very complex oscillation pattern, meaning that same bottle opened at a different time would’ve been fine, so it’s not the bottle, per se, that caused the variation. It’s not truly variant, just in a weird mood.
I’ve experienced shock in the extreme from bottling. Very gently siphoned bottling. The bold ripe fruit, new oak and minerality were all completely gone the next day, leaving just dull low end soy and molasses. Over the course of an evening that bottle recovered about 50%. None of the other bottles resembled that one showing in any way.
So, I don’t think a small sample size will necessarily show a variation. Many wines are likely impervious to travel shock. But, I’m sure travel can effect some wines. And, travel is just one of the factors that can lead to a temporary variation. It’s complicated.
Firm beliver too. Too many times I’ve opened a box and been tempted to smaple right away. Without fail, the same wine from the same box I try again a month later is significantly better.
+1
Jay, I didn’t know you had a Nobel Prize! You (and your supposed straw men) must be doing something right. 
I have not seen proof either way. But being ITB as long as I have, I try to eliminate as many things that are potentially detrimental to a wine as I can. One of those being travel. Last thing I want to do is to be looking at a bottle that tastes dead and be thinking “I wish I had opened it next week”.
Honestly, I am struggling to understand the controversy. Obviously, a long, shaky journey involving exposure to risky or harmful temperatures/temperature swings is very likely to damage wine, or at least affect it, depending on the exact circumstances. The fact is, most travel/transport is likely to include, in varying degrees, some sort of disturbance or conditions that are known to be less than propitious for wine.
(Even so, anecdotal evidence would suggest that, within reason, some types of wine are more susceptible than others.)
I live in Europe and mostly drink European wines, which, on average, means that the travails of travel are normally kept down to a minimum (as compared to overseas shipments). Even so, I’ve seen stuff that I put down to travel shock, so I tend to leave new arrivals alone for at least a couple of weeks and often more.
If you are a product of the 60’s, you will know there are GOOD trips and BAD trips.
This about sums it up. The doors of perception are open wide 
What does exactly “travel shock” encompass? I don’t think the simple act of a wine being shook up during transit does anything at all to a young wine with no sediment, but I would be inclined to think large temperature swings, and changes in pressure during shipment will have an impact. I also wouldn’t bother opening a wine that has been bottled in the last 6 months either.
Here’s another data point.
Just ordered some wines from Wade’s Wines in LA. Inside the shipping box was a card instructing me to NOT consume the wines for several days in order to let them relax.
So Wade’s thinks there is travel shock.
Since there’s not going to be much in the way of genuine scientific date or research on the topic, my feeling is this - I usually have enough wine to resist opening new bottles for a couple of weeks. If there is such a thing as travel shock, the wines I open are not susceptible to it because I give them enough time. If there isn’t, all I’m out is a couple of weeks before I can pull corks, and I already have other wines to enjoy in the meantime.