I’d stipulate shipment by air for the question, as obviously ground shipping through northern states could expose wine to below freezing temps for days on end.
Specifically for me, I have wine coming today Napa (to VA) where it got down to 18-20 degrees in the early morning (at which time planes would’ve been unloaded and trucks would’ve been loaded). So I figure the wine was fully exposed to sub-freezing temps for maybe an hour or two sitting and then on a truck (where the back is also not climate controlled, but presumably it’s a bit warmer than outside temps?) for a few early AM hours before it got into the high 30s more like fridge temperatures. Safe or would you be worried? Most of the wine is daily drinker stuff, but I do have a single bottle of '16 Eisele coming too … and I’d be bummed to pop that one in a decade and have clear evidence of leakage and know what happened. Any other advice (like leave it in my 40’s garage for a day and bring it up to temp before throwing it in 55F wine cooler?)
The only harm would be if enough of the wine froze to push up the cork, damaging the seal. With those temperatures/times, it’s unlikely (the wine starts to freeze around 22F, but not much freezes, it takes a while, and the wine has to cool down before it can freeze). No need to leave in your garage, just inspect the bottles.
18-20F still good to ship, but don’t keep it on your doorstep for a week at that temp. If the wine is moving, I’d say down to 12-15 would be okay but sketchy. Would prefer 20+ to ship, in case it stands still outdoors.
I live in Eastern PA and I’m fine with shipping if tempts are in 30’s daytime 20’s at night. Only have had 1 bottle push the cork up and it was when the daytime temp was in the 20’s all week long and the wine came from CA. I brought it to room temp and opened it, tasted fine. All of my shipments I have held at UPS or Walgreens(fedex) so I don’t have to be home when they come since a signature is needed.
Good to hear people pretty open to shipping temps. There’s more acceptable range than people sometimes think. Next week should be good across the upper Midwest with a warm up bringing temps along the northern routes to mostly 20s at night if not 30s. good to get some samples to distributors and critics on the road.
Shipping from Napa to VA is, to some degree, dicey 10 months out of the year in the sense that there is almost always someplace in between hotter or colder than you’d want. Without knowing where your wine may get stuck, there is really no way to measure the risks.
But in my very (very) long experience I have never ever had a problem shipping in the winter. Never had a cork push out or dislodge, never had a wine-cicle delivered, never opened a bottle I thought was flawed by cold. I check to see if there is a snowstorm that might trap my wine on a tractor trailer someplace for days on end, but failing that, I never hesitate to pull the trigger on a winter shipment.
Just make sure they are in your cellar by March, or April at the latest. The heat’ll kill ya
Just to close the loop on my case at least, wine delivered 1pm and used infrared thermometer “gun” to grab a temp on the wine… both inside and outside bottles (case box w/ styrofoam) were 47F. I’m guessing they probably warmed a couple of degrees from the cold point this morning, but seems like they were well north of ever being in the freezing range.
This is only problem I have had but it has made me a bit more conservative in the winter. This was shipped from east coast to Chicago and we got a crazy cold snap to single digits. They shipped without my knowledge and corrected it and made it right which was appreciated.
Had this happen to me once, shipping from back east to Cali, when a cold snap hit. Corks were half protruded, I just hammered them back in, and the wines have been fine. But it’s a good lesson learned. It takes pretty severe cold weather, and a bit of bad luck, but it can happen.
Yeah this was a bit unlucky with the weather, lows in the -s. There was wine all over the container so most of these got drunk or gifted for immediate consumption because of exposure to air. Oh well Barbaresco popsicles !
