That looks like a shipment I had sent during one of the Polar Vortexes a few years back. All 6 bottles pushing up daisies.
How important do we think styro is in protecting against cold temps during shipping?
The wine shop I patronize uses styro-free cardboard shippers and I was tempted to ship next week, but the wine could see temps one night of the journey as low as 22-23F.
Sounds like no one here would worry about those lows if in styro, but what about if just in cardboard?
Thanks.
Pat, you may recall this thread from a few years ago. The general conclusion seemed to be that styro and cardboard are surprisingly not that different:
I also found this much older thread, FWIW:
Thanks, Alan. I hadn’t seen that thread before, love all the nerdy data in it!
I decided to ship next week in pulp shippers – the only concern is the night before it is delivered (when the wine is presumably sitting in the local Fedex warehouse), when the low is forecast to be 22.
I’ve thought before about doing a simple experiment with freezing risk by putting some cheap wines in a pulp shipper on the back porch overnight in winter to see at what temps the wine freezes at, but I’ve never gotten around to it (I worry more about freeze risks than heat, as I never ship ground when ambient temps are forecast to be >70 anywhere en route)
The most expensive popcicle in the world
My understanding is that the issue is with white wine, with tartric acid precipitating in the bottle when exposed to low temps, with resulting white acid flakes popping up. Could be wrong, though.
That can happen if the wine wasn’t cold stabilized. It’s at least as likely with reds (because mostly not cold stabilized), although it may not be noticed as much because people aren’t surprised by sediment in reds. It doesn’t hurt the wine, though. Note that this is essentially what is done in the cold stabilization process that is used for some white wines.
-Al