Just received my notice that Rivers-Marie wine will arrive in Phoenix area on Wednesday.
Just wondering … since the temperature with be 85 degrees on Tuesday and 87 degrees on Wednesday … what is the possibility/probability of the wine being heat damaged?
High.
Are they shipping ground? If it’s left today and it’s on the road for two days, that’s not what you’d want. Doesn’t guarantee heat damage though - wine is a little hardier than we imagine and there’s a lot of wine in distributor’s trucks that gets carted around all day in the heat.
Maybe ask them to overnight it or include a cool pack?
Warm weather means no COVID 19…so you got that going for you
Joel, I’m also in a warm weather state and have about 10yrs of experience of now of drinking heat damaged wine on store shelves. But sometimes have to make some compromises otherwise the shipping window is just too short. My cutoff for shipping is 80. I generally have wine delivered to my house, which is usually after 3pm. However if it looks mostly overcast then I’ll let that trend up a little. I’m also more lenient with robust younger wines I’m going to drink soon.
For you, temps in AM are still pretty cool and if wine is being delivered in the first half of the day I wouldn’t worry too much. Sitting on the truck in the sun and delivered at 5pm? Eh, they will probably be fine but that’s pushing it for me.
I try to have all my deliveries shipped in Dec/Jan, but that doesn’t always happen. On every order I place with a california winery, I ask them to check with me before shipping and/or hold for weather. It’s been in the mid 80’s here for a few weeks, and I am toward the end of my UPS delivery route (4-5 pm) and mid-afternoon for Fed Ex. I have received a few shipping notices in the last week; none have honored my requests to hold/notify BEFORE. Pretty frustrating.