Ship issue

TrfffttrrrfT

You’ve been had and handled.

I think you can taste “fully cooked” upon arrival, so pop the most worrisome bottle and see.

I suspect the wines are perfectly fine. My experience is that it takes more than one afternoon in a hot car for wines in Styrofoam packing to warm up. (I actually tested this once with wine bottles of water, placed in my hot car, with a temperature sensor inside one of the styro sleeves, next to a bottle of water. The temp inside did not change more than 3-4 degrees over a period of about 5 hours in the sun.

The only thing you say that concerns me is that the corks are pushed up. If they are, in fact, pushed out of the bottle (through the foil), then I would be very worried, although in that case I would expect that you’d have wine seeping out of the bottles as well…But if you are just saying the corks aren’t 100% flush with the glass, and are a few millimetres “up” from flush, that is not very rare to see in perfectly well-stored wines.

As per the prior post, I would probably just taste one of the bottles with the pushed up corks and see what you get (and whether, when you remove the cork, you see any signs of seepage).

You asked that it be shipped when the weather was cool and were told no because it would be shipped temp controlled. It wasn’t, at least that last leg, and the bottles (some of them) were showing signs of the heat. The first fact to me is the most important. I’d ask to return them

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I agree with Neal.

Tyler, I wouldn’t be thrilled about what happened. If the retailer said “it will be shipped in a temperature controlled vehicle” I would expect it to be delivered from the retailer to me in a temperature controlled vehicle. The fact that it was UPS at the last leg, means that it wasn’t what the retailer said.

I’ve always insisted on shipping when I feel comfortable, and if the retailer insists shipping during a time where I felt it was too warm (regardless if it’s on their end or mine), I would probably not make the purchase. In my experience, most retailers would hold for a reasonable time period.

Maybe ask the retailer if you set them aside for 3-6 weeks as he suggested, and then popped a bottle and it tasted heat damaged, could you return all the wine?

Q: did the retailer utilize the UPS Summer Shipping Solution?

What is this part about? All of my wine for over 10 years comes from shipping retailers, I have never heard of one who declined to ship when both parties felt the weather was suitable. Why would they even want to store and be liable for your purchase any longer than necessary?

That’s ridiculous. While the wines are possibly fine, why risk it? A material misrepresentation was made to you. You shouldn’t have to accept potentially compromised wine due to a patent misrepresentation. I’d demand a return.

Thank you for all of your responses.

Unfortunately, 2 of the cases are from a very small under the radar producer that has no more wine to replace the ones that I ordered. UGH!!

I’m certainly not going to wait 6 weeks for the “bottle shock” to subside. But I will give the bottle with the highest elevated cork a try in about a week.

If it is damaged, hopefully they will accept a full return!

Thanks again for the advice. Never had to deal with this before.

Make sure you take pictures of them - and perhaps ask them exactly how the wines should smell and taste. You should have ‘visual proof’ of the condition of the bottles upon receipt.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Cheers

Good call on the pics, Larry!

Who is this retaiLer?

First theY claim they can ship out whenever because they seem to clearLy not understand the sciencE behind heat.

But they believe in bottle shock From A truck ride?

Sounds like a retailer that wouldn’t take back your wine and one id never do businesS with.

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Wow, you are good.

Don’t ship when the weather is hot. Ever. No matter what. BE A PEST.

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He can’t control when the retailer randomly ships though.

Yeah, they clearly lied to you, knowing being straight risked losing a sale. Curious why they couldn’t ship right away. That all sounds dodgy.

Not sure where that comes from. OP said: "I ordered about 4 cases of wine from a shop a few months back and asked for them to be shipped, and they responded back with the fact that they ship temperature controlled, and that timing therefore doesn’t matter.

NOT WANTING TO BE A PEST, I just said ok." [emphasis added.]

Something along these lines pissed me off a few weeks ago. Very old, reputable shop that I work with occasionally these days but have probably purchased $15-20K of wine from over the years listed some 30 year old Bordeaux; I emailed “would you mind checking bottle condition / fill”, and got the response “here’s a pic:”
unnamed.jpg
Trusted vendor, photo looks good, send me the wine. Here’s what I got:
IMG_3106.JPG
Like, dang, what the heck did I do to deserve this? Utter fail.

Lesson learned!