shipping

[Innkeeper]

Living in the North Country gives me lots of opportunity to test shipping. At this time of year you do run the risk of freezing. I just had my first bad, but not really bad experience. Had a winery ship a case behind us after a trip to CA. It was dutifully shipped the following Monday. Of course that was our week of sub-zero temperature. When it arrived, there was one bottle in a corner of the case with a raised cork and leakage in the container. It was not frozen and we immediately went out and got something to eat with it and had it for dinner. Sure it could have improved with a little shipping rest, and possibly a little time in the rack, but it was fine. Fortunately it was not one requiring lengthy aging. That would have been a big problem.

Speaking of shipping rest, that is an issue we haven't kicked around here for a while. Wine does improve from resting after shipment. This includes all from a cross country or cross ocean shipment, right down to a trip home from the local store. Depending on the length of shipment I usually let wine rest anywhere from a day to two weeks.