Hi all,
I’m in San Diego and received a wine shipment today, UPS from Santa Barbara area (it was the first delivery attempt). I opened immediately after receiving from the UPS person and noticed the bottles were very warm. So I grabbed my temp gun and the bottles were at 85 degrees. No elevated corks or signs of leakage.
The Syrahs ranged from 2001 to early 2020s.
How upset/concerned about heat damage would you be?
Thanks,
Geoff
Immediate consumption may be ok, long term I would return
Did they let you know that they were shipping in advance? When did it ship?
I would say that things are probably okay - but it’s certainly a good idea to reach out to the shipper to let them know and see what they say . . .
Keep us posted
Cheers
I wouldn’t be too concerned, even in the long-term. In terms of how upset you should be, did you request that the sender hold your shipment? If not, why is it their fault?
Any cork protrusion or leakage? If not the wine is probably fine.
I’m in mission Viejo and my wine is stored in a closet and we don’t use AC in the house.
Don’t ask…
Over 20 years never had a heat damaged wine. I’m drinking with 8 years typically.
Did drink a stellar 99 DP champagne that I stored like this for 15 years.
Planning to drink in the next 6 months.
It was a missed shipment from the spring. They offered to re-ship and I politely pointed out it was warm and not to rush. I didn’t specifically state do not ship.
No. No profusion or leakage. I did inform the winery and asked to make sure they didn’t ship in the summer to be again.
You’re fine.
You should be fine for 6 months if you get the wine back to the rational zone
I’ll also add, if your “temp gun” is infrared, it can only measure the surface temperature.
As we all know from chilling wine, a cold bottle to the touch does not mean the liquid inside is chilled.
Is 85 the hottest or the current temp. If you didn’t explicitly approve shipment in late july, I’d return them.
It was the current bottle temp when I received them. No idea what the hottest temp was.
Agreed, but it’s the best way I could gauge temp without opening the bottles…
Were they in styrofoam? If so, 85 may have been the peak temp.
You didn’t say how many days they were in transit? If it was only a day or two, I wouldn’t sweat it. Concentrated young red wines are pretty sturdy. (The 2001s somewhat less so.)
There are lots of wine stores this time of year that run in the high 70s. If the humidity is l low, you wouldn’t even feel it was warm.
Bottom line: If the wines are hard to come by, I wouldn’t send them back and I wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep if I were going to drink them over the next couple of years.
Of course and I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. I just mean that the 85 reading might not reflect the actual temperature of the wine.
You’ll be fine.
The weird thing with heat damage is that I think certain wines are “pre-disposed” for it somehow. It happens to some just like that without having even seen extreme temps - they’re gonna go that way no matter what. Then you can forget a bottle for 8 years in your attic and it’s totally fine…
Bizarre.
This was going to be my question. The concern level would be a little higher if they took four or five days to reach you and arrived at that temperature.
One compromise might be to have a conversation with them about their mistake, and maybe say you’ll open one or two after a couple weeks in cool storage, and then if they’re heat damaged you’ll return the wines, but if they’re good, then you’ll just move ahead.
As others have said, you’re probably fine. Santa Barbara to San Diego isn’t far, probably a couple days transit at most, and California cools off enough at night that much of that travel time wasn’t an issue. The bottle was likely warmer than its contents due to afternoon warm-up.
But for anyone new to wine shipping reading this thread, I think it’s important to mention that a shop’s ability to hold for cool weather shipping should be one of the top considerations in whether you choose them - more important than price even. And any time you order, make sure you add a note in the comments to hold for Fall shipping. I always say I will call them to arrange shipping when I think it’s safe. If there is no comments section at check-out, I either call the shop or choose a different shop - I never order when there’s a chance it will be shipped in the summer heat.
