My trunk is much cooler than the cab, and it’s a hatchback. On top of that, I have a heat reflective car cover in there that keeps anything under it very cool. If it’s very hot out, I’ll bring a styro.
So far my poll is pretty inconclusive but since Alan is a bit of a scientist I put some weight on his opinion that the trunk is better than the cabin. Most of the time I don’t plan out a local wine buy enough to have a cooler & ice along with me. I can see having a ready styro in the trunk but, I’d need to cool it down in the cabin while driving to the store as I suspect it would be hot from days sitting in the trunk waiting for use. I’m out and about a lot during the week so I can buy wine anytime its convenient. Mostly, as others mention, I’ll wait till the end of day and drive it straight home but its good to have some new strategies for when you need to leave it in the car for longer than preferred. Thanks.
The problem with storing it in the trunk is that you can easily be distracted and forget it is in there. Oops. In the passenger compartment you are always reminded to remove it when you arrive home. How do I know this you ask…?
Craig, the heat capacity of your styro is so small that it almost doesn’t matter, compared to a cool bottle of wine you would put in it. You can always pull the stryo inside the car to cool it a bit more, before your next stop, particularly if you remove the top half and leave it open. You’ll feel it cool down in just minutes.
There’s some old conventional advice against putting the wine in your truck while “touring wine country”. This is because the car is in the sun while driving, when A/C will be cooling the cabin, but not the trunk, as well as potentially having to park in the sun, and just all the time. You might load in your first purchase at noon, taste all day, then go out to dinner before getting back to the hotel. I get the impression that modern trunks are much better insulated than a few decades ago.
Also, be careful. Measures that work to keep the wines cool on a normally hot summer day may not work on an unusually hot day.
Yep, after my first trip to NV, I’ve avoided toting around any wine I bought. I’ve just ordered off list for dinner. My bigger problem with a Napa Valley trip is I don’t find much wine I want to buy anyhow. I’m way more of a Europhile but I love the beauty of Napa Valley and dinning there. I will buy a little wine if I do a personal tour of sorts or picnic like up at Pride Mt. I only do a couple tours these days when I go to CA wine country. More to your point if I’m driving around in my car for any amount of time I’d rather have the wine in the car with the A/C then in the trunk. If I leave a retailer and am heading home its in the car with me, not the trunk.
I use a styrofoam 12 pack with a frozen 1 liter water bottle in one of the slots (remove ~20% of the water before freezing so the bottle doesn’t burst). This will keep the wine cool in pretty much any condition. This doesn’t help with spontaneous wine purchases, but it’s the best approach I’m come across for planned wine trips.
If I’m travelling (more than 1 day) with wine I’ll bring some water bottles with wide mouth screw top lids (I use nalgene, cuz that’s what I use while backpacking). That way I can easily refill with ice from motel/hotel ice machines. These aren’t as efficient at cooling as a frozen water bottle (because it’s hard to pack as much ice in), so you should allow for more bottles and slots in the styro 12 pack. For a big wine trip, I usually take 11 bottles and 1 frozen water bottle. Then as I open bottles during the trip, I rotate in wide mouth ice filled bottles.
The slots right next to the ice are best for white wines, as those are the coolest…and the other slots for red wines.
I’ve taken trips (to Paso, Santa Barbara et al) with the wine in the car all day, sitting in hot sun, etc and the wine always stays plenty cool.