Shipping: Impressed by Saxum

It’s a challenge to ship wine across the country to South Florida. Even in December, temps regularly hit 80+ degrees. And when we get that random “cool spell,” it’s often when temps are well below freezing across the country along the shipping routes.

Last winter, my first year living here full time, I had several wine shipments sent way too early when temps here were in the high 80s, as well as others where the fulfilment company ignored my instructions, and as a result, I had multiple cases of wine show up warm to the touch, with seeping and/or protruding corks. Fortunately, every winery replaced the heat damaged wine.

But I was determined to do my best to avoid this issue this year. I have been diligent with shipping windows and communications to/from wineries, and so far, only 1 winery ignored my instructions and shipped my wine by mistake in a heatwave (and reached out by phone and email to apologize and offer to replace).

Today, I received the following email from Saxum and was really impressed, although not surprised, as they have always had exemplary customer service:

Based off of the UPS 2-Day tracking information it looks like your order, XXXXXX, from Saxum Vineyards may have been delayed. Many Florida shipments are now scheduled to be delivered early next week. We apologize for the inconvenience. The carriers became overwhelmed with holiday shipments and weren’t able to load the packages onto the plane as scheduled. Your tracking number is XXXXXXXXXXXXX.

We just thought you might like to know about the delay. We included a temperature tag in all the packages we sent to Florida (attached to a bottle wrapped in blue tissue). We do not foresee any issues because the temperatures have been mild along most routes. If you receive a tag with a red circle, let us know by replying to this message.

If you already contacted the carrier or received your package(s) simply disregard this message and enjoy the wine.

Thank you!

Sierra and Lisa
Saxum Vineyards

Cheers! And thank you, Saxum.

Agree…they are on top of things. I received one of two boxes (the magnum) from them today and it had one of the high temperature indicator stickers on the bottle. The indicator reflected no high temperature event. I’m not sure why this would not be an industry standard for all high end wines as it seems to me the most precarious part of provenance is in the initial handoff from the shipper to the wine consumer.

I did like that sensor and think it is money well spent on their part to attach it to the bottles so you have peace of mind. I live in the desert in California so getting temps in the right window in October or November is iffy sometimes, that sensor is awesome and would think can’t be too outrageously expensive?

What temperature causes it to turn red?

Not sure, (over 80?) but it had three indicator zones… short term high temp exposure, moderate term high temperature exposure and prolonged high temperature exposure

Totally agree. Wish other wineries would do the same! I am toward the end of the daily route for both fed ex and UPS, so my wine could be on a hot truck for 10 hours, even if the weather was cool along the cross-country shipping route.

Ponsot added a tracking system so that you could read the live-temp for the first year of the wines life in their cases a year or two back. I remember being impressed that they took it that far. Each case had it’s own website that could be accessed. There’s a lot of tech out there that really could change things in the shipping/temps game.