I am receiving a shipment of futures from the Oregon Pinot Noir Club today. It
is travelling through the high country, and we are in the deep freeze, after
our first winter storm dumped two feet of snow last week. If the wine does not
freeze (liquid temperature in the teens), is there any harm to my wine? The
club (Robert Wolfe, resident) promises to replace if the wine breaks.

Most stores call or email before they ship, but this one looks at (inaccurate)
weather reports and makes a unilateral decision. Nice outfit other than their
shipping policy.

Tom Schellberg

In article >,
(Xyzsch) writes:

> am receiving a shipment of futures from the Oregon Pinot Noir Club today. It
>is travelling through the high country, and we are in the deep freeze, after
>our first winter storm dumped two feet of snow last week. If the wine does
>not
>freeze (liquid temperature in the teens), is there any harm to my wine? The
>club (Robert Wolfe, resident) promises to replace if the wine breaks.
>
>Most stores call or email before they ship, but this one looks at
>(inaccurate)
>weather reports and makes a unilateral decision. Nice outfit other than their
>shipping policy.
>

Tom, I'd never hesitate to send back any wine sent during extreme conditions
that I had not pre-approved the shipping date.

That being said, I worry very little about cold temps. While I try to have the
bulk of any wine I order delivered Oct-Nov or April-May, I've had several
orders in Dec or Jan, when NY temps were in 20s °F (teens at night).I've never
had problems, and the worse I've heard of is tartrate precipitation. While no
shipping company I know uses heated carriers, the reality is that for some of
the trip your shipment is in a warehouse- not usually heated in sense of a
home, but usually at least in 40s for worker comfort. And while the back of a
truck isn't heated either, temp is a bit warmer than outside. Assuming the wine
is coming in a styrofoam shipper, I'd be surprised if temp of wine went below
maybe 30 degrees in most instances. In my NY examples, I'd guess the January
wines were about 40-45.

Good luck!
Dale

Dale Williams
Drop "damnspam" to reply

I agree with Dale. Worry more about high temperatures. Unless the
truck gets stuck overnight in a snow storm, I doubt you have to worry.
When the wines arrive, inspect the bottles, especially if any
corks/capsules show any sign of bulging up above the rim.

The UPS man just delivered the wine (7 PM MST).They were probably backed up due
to the snow. It's pretty cold, but the wine did not freeze.

According to UPS tracking data, the wine arrived in the Casper warehouse last
night at 11:30. It was -5 F, and was "checked in" by 3:00 AM. Apparenly, it
was on the truck most of the day. Today it got up to 30 F. I'm just glad it's
in my possesion.

I guess I am already a little peaved. Last January, they held up shipments
when the local temperature was in the 50s, because it was cold in Chicago.Yet
they shipped during a March blizzard. My wine arrived the day after the roads
opened up. Most roads wehad been closed for two days. Maybe if he looked at a
weather reporting station closer than Denver before making shipping decisions,
this would not happen.

Tom Schellberg