"Cellar" or Ambient store temp question

This is less a hypothetical question, but if you were to fly out across the country (to a warm/hot state) to pick up a bottle of wine that was several thousand dollars would you:

A) Ask them to gradually bring the bottle temperature to their normal a/c store temperature
B) Have it kept in their temperature controlled wine refrigerator and use some combination of gel packs and an insulated case

This wine is going to be flown back as checked luggage not consumed on location.

Have any of you experienced this conundrum?

I don’t think in the short term that there is really much of a difference between keeping the wine at the store temp (assuming it’s around 70F) or the cellar temp, but I’d just ask them to keep it in the cellar. Since the cargo hold is cold, the only time the wine is exposed to hot temps is really the time from the shop to the plan being air bound, and the drive home from the airport. In those cases, having some cold packs in the shipper should do the trick.

I can’t imagine why one would want to have them bring it to room temp. Sure, sudden temp changes aren’t great for wine, but wrapping/insulating is designed to slow that. If you bring it into a warm environment, the temp change is going to be be roughly same rate starting from 55 or 70. But you are giving away 15 degrees of comfort as to terminal high temp.
You can’t predict how long wine might sit on tarmac, or plane might taxi. Insulate well, and start from cooler temp.

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B. With a well insulated over pack.

If it gradually warms to ambient temp during trip, cool it back to cellar temp on arrival.

Oops

I wouldn’t care, it makes no difference.

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Bringing it to room temperature slowly wouldn’t harm the wine. As long as it can be ensured that the wine will not be “heated” while in cargo you’re on the safe side.

On the other hand if the bottle gets warm to quickly you could get a problem with paper labels shrinking and get loose due to condensation.

I for one try to avoid this condensation and slowly let the bottles get room temperature before packing them for transport; having lost a few nice labels I learned my lesson.

Cheers

Andy

My thoughts exactly. You really don’t know what will happen between when you check the wine and when you get it back. Might as well start out as cool and protected as possible.

That was mostly my concern tbh.

Fwiw, I just transported a bunch of bottles in 80+ degree weather on a 2 hour flight with about 2 hours of driving starting at 55 in my vinguardvalise. When I unpacked the bottles at the hotel they were probably ~62-63, red drinking temperature.