Just curious.
If you received wine that was shipped and, at some point it went through a frozen region and it froze (and subsequently thawed before you received it) how would you know?
What are the flawed characteristics that would be evident?
Are there telltale signs that this took place?
I am not asking because i am experiencing this currently.
Although, I have received wine that was shipped (ground) this winter that i have not tried yet.
Thanks
Karl
Usually the cork would be pushed out and possibly some sign of leaking . That’s the most obvious.
This has been covered in another recent thread, Frozen Wine Questions.
Thanks John
Missed that.
I just experienced this problem, and indeed, corks were nearly expelled from several bottles.
It is particularly notable in unfiltered whites. Tartaric acid precipitates out when the temperature gets low enough and will collect at the bottom in crystal form. Though if it actually freezes, the cork will push.
Not from transit but this is what happens when wine freezes. In this case the unopened wines were stored in a top/bottom refrigerator freezer. When the Napa quake hit, the doors both opened, wines fell from the refrigerator into thr freezer and the doors closed. We did not know until a few weeks later when we found wine popsicles in the freezer. Wine expanded enough to push the corks out and through the capsules.
I heard from a wine merchant friend of mine that they had an incident where the bottles that were to be delivered to the shop were delivered in an non-temperature controlled vehicle during wintertime. The corks had pushed out from some of the wines, but not all of them. Obviously all of the wines had been exposed to some sub-zero temperatures but some wines didn’t freeze so much that the corks would’ve pushed through the foil. The wines were immediately discarded but my friend bought one lower-end Cru Bordeaux and one Sauternes from the case in question and control bottles of the same wines from the shop.
These possibly-frozen wines were blind tasted with the control bottles after some 3-4 years of cellaring with some knowledgeable wine people - who didn’t know what the wines were or what had happened to them. The conclusions were that the frozen wines were perfectly ok in the sense that they came across as perfectly normal, un-faulty wines. However, the frozen wines were markedly different from the control bottles with much more one-dimensional aromas and flavors, lacking much of the depth and intensity of the control bottles. The most notable difference was that the control Cru Bordeaux was quite tannic, but the frozen wine didn’t seem to have any tannins at all. Like, none. Everyone noted that the frozen Cru Bordeaux was suspiciously non-tannic for the style.
So while the wines may remain pretty drinkable after having been frozen, based on this anecdote, they do suffer quite a bit nevertheless.
Interesting.
Thank you.