Ordered some wine online and there was a cold weather hold for the winter. Then I get a notification last week that it was shipped. Didn’t see until it was too late, and seems was ground shipped in 10-15 degree weather. If the corks aren’t raised what are my concerns and any suggestions? Some of the bottles can’t be replaced by the retailer.
If corks are undisturbed, wine should be fine. Wine needs about 20 F at around 4 hours to freeze though. Then it will start pushing corks. Inside of a non temperature controlled truck will be a few degrees warmer than the ambient temperature and parcels stacked between parcels will be a few degrees warmer than that.
Good luck with your shipment. The box itself also provides a few degrees on insulation
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There was a separate thread about shipping in cold weather. I had bottles unexpectedly ship in the teens and they were fine. If the corks aren’t raised and the bottles are just cold, I don’t know that there should be anything to be especially concerned about. I suspect they will be okay, but that is definitely nerve-wracking. Only potential issue could be is if they are low-alcohol whites. When are the bottles supposed to arrive?
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I think if the corks aren’t raised, you don’t have any concern.
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A friend of mine had this happen in Sweden a few years ago. He opened a bottle as soon as it arrived. It poured out of the bottle so he assumed the rest would be ok as well. I guess his reasoning was that if it had frozen it wouldn’t have completely thawed when it was delivered.
Corks seemed ok, opened a bottle and the wine seemed to be in good shape. Crisis averted.
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I had this issue. It’s standard practice for high end retailers to check the weather five days out before shipping wine. Most will hold if the weather is in an extreme range. Been buying wine for 3 decades and never not seen this rule being followed, until last month. Merchant’s reaction was to blame me for not checking the weather myself. What I learned is that if you purchase with an Amex they will protect you. In my case it got weirder as the merchant turned the shipment around after 4 days of travel, didn’t tell me and attempted to keep my funds(the only conclusion I can make in the absence of communication). Worked out OK for me although I would have preferred to have received the bottle in good condition.
I wouldn’t say that’s the case. I always email vendors immediately after placing orders to let them know when i’d like the wine shipped and follow-up with phone calls if they don’t reply. I think the vast majority of vendors will ship wine asap unless they specifically say they don’t on their site or have a mechanism during the order process for you to have the wine held for future shipment.
that’s only for whites. I have no issues shipping wines in cold weather if the weather isn’t going to be consistently in the teens. It’s much better than shipping in warm weather.
yeah, in my case there was an explict hold, actually that got incorrectly lifted by the retailer by some automated rules in their system. so it was a bit of a surprise to me. I would agree with Michael, usually people ship right away unless told otherwise in a retail setting, but lots of sites have options to hold until a later date if you specify.
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Based on lots of earlier discussion here, for example, this thread
Tartaric acid crystals - WINE TALK - WineBerserkers
this claim is wrong.
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Can you cite a source for this dubious proposition?
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Then you can see with your own eyes that the producer didn’t chill filter their wines before bottling them, which means they don’t actually care much about their wines and thus you can deduce that the wines are total garbage.
Source: trust me bro
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This reminds me of the time I learned WineBid’s weather hold policy only kicks in at 20 F.
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My understanding is if the wine is packed in Styrofoam it should survive the first 48 hours. In my situation wine was sent criss cluntry during the recent blizzard