Wine shipping funny

WINE TALK
1

Had an interesting conversation with the “wine director” at a local upscale grocery.

I asked her if her wines were delivered in refrigerated trucks,as she had a wide range of upper end California cabs and Oregon pinots.She replied:“What?Of course not!They (the wines) sweat just like the rest of us”…as if this was a badge of honor.
Lotta wine going down the tubes these days… [swoon.gif]

2

Yeah, but to be fair, we’ve NEVER had complete knowledge of where a wine has been between production and purchase. I suspect it’s more resilient that we all think.

3

Sorry,Eric,but wine,any wine, just doesn’t survive many hours or days in the back of an unrefrigerated truck in 80-90+ degree temperatures.

4

Bill,

I doubt the wine from the winery to the distributor is in refrigerated truck or that the wine from distributor to store is in refrigerated truck either. If it is that’s a rare case indeed.

Then think about the wine that comes from Europe? woo wee

5

Bad response from someone who should know better. The wine stores & package stores are getting the same wines, tough, at least in a lot of states. Parker & Co, Speculator, Tanzer, Burghound should be going freakin’ nuts over this in almost every issue…oh, well.

John

6

Agreed.My point was that this response was so outlandish as to be humorous.
Anyone who has been buying wine for more than a few years knows that the majority of wines in the pipeline are suspect at best…and one needs to deal carefully with those vendors who have integrity and knowledge as to temperature control.They exist,but are all too few.

7

Bill, I don’t disagree that heat kills. What I’m saying is that we have no certain knowledge of provenance - a refrigerated truck guarantees nothing, except its most recent ride. Wine could sit outside on a shipping dock waiting to leave a warehouse, or it could sit on a pallet waiting to be brought inside a store, etc. We just don’t know what conditions it’s been subjected to on route to its final destination.

However, I am suggesting that we can’t assume that a wine is ruined because it didn’t arrive in a refrigerated truck. Case in point, I once received a shipment from a Central Coast Pinot producer in the middle of August. When the bottles arrived, they were literally hot. I made a conscious decision not to return them. Some years later I took these wines to an offline, and they got rave reviews from everyone.

8

No accounting for taste… [oops.gif]

9

No one wants to ruffle the feathers.

10

You seem to be doing a fine job,Dan… [thumbs-up.gif]

11

No critics, is how I meant it.