Bottle Shock Part 2: So if I leave a bottle in my car…
Maybe you can tell me, why does wine taste so different when I drink it in the Okanagan versus when I get it home?
When I worked at a winery tasting room, most folk were locals who mounted up on their aluminum steeds for long weekends of wine bending fun, marathon tasting and some form of dinner by the lake. After enough drinks, they might search for Ogopogo, since Lake Okanagan is the Canadian Loch Ness. Supposed lake-bound sea monsters (or undead prehistoric aquatic dinosaurs) aside, most BCers believe in the magic of the Okanagan terroir (Article to come). The crisp apple-and-stone-fruit whites, the lightly fruity but not jammy Pinot Noir, apple-bright Chardonnay, endless cherry-riffic Merlot & unctuous Syrah. The gremlins who flit about purposefully ruining squirrelled away favourite bottles which survived the homeward trip.
“You went to quite a few wineries, right?” Another pour in the tasting room, possibly a freshly opened bottle of Bacchus, Siegerrebe or Madeleine.
“Yeah! We had a driver, you know, my spouse doesn’t drink wine” or “Yeah, my pregnant friend/sibling was driving.” or “We ubered.”
“When you bought bottles, where did they go?”
“In the trunk.” The sipper generally sniffed the wine, after a good swirl. Maybe some giggles between girls on this ‘mom’s day off’ tasting afternoon.
“And when you were winery hopping, what was the car doing?”
“Yeah, we parked it and did a tasting, sometimes lunch or such on the patios. Gosh, did you remember those crepes? Then back to the wine shop to add the bottles to our cases.”
“So, you left a whole bunch of wine bottles in a hot trunk during late spring, into the summertime?”
The dawning came with the somewhat awkward realization car boots (or trunks) in the spring and into the summer can get hot enough to cook the wine. Once wine has been ‘cooked’, or heat damaged, unlike bottle shock with a new or mature and disturbed bottle, there is no gentle rewind.
We are the mighty owners of premium cooking wine. Long may it add acidity to our sauces.
Heat damage is no joke. It’s the single easiest way to turn that per bottle investment into the largest disappointment since agreeing to that roommate who happened to be your friend, but also never happened to have steady income.
With the massive heatwave which took place on the Pacific Coast of Canada last summer firm in my mind, I’m already calculating how much faster certain bottles of my favourite full bodied reds aged. Might need to sample them, party at my place?
Yes, added heat can ‘age a wine faster’ than if it was at a consistent cellar temp of 11–15° C. Not all wine ages well. Scratch not all, and put most.
Most wine is not meant to be aged more than a toddler’s lifespan. Full stop.
A little bit of summer heat can expedite age in a wine, too much heat? See the above quip about premium cooking wine.
How do we bring back beloved booze from their comfy bastion homes?
On a road trip, try bringing a cooler (or two) with a frozen gel pack in the bottom (not ice, never ice!), put a tea towel on top of the gel pack for condensation’s sake and place your bottles in the cooler. Close the cooler every time. No, the one gel pack won’t freeze the wine. It’s there to help regulate a relatively cooler temperature inside the box as opposed to the scorching heat of the car. Gentle and minimal change is the crux. Keep your wine in the temperature controlled hotel room, even if it’s a bit of a slog to bring a potential few cases up potential stairs.
When we get home, find a spot, where the temperature can be kept consistent as possible. Relatively cool is okay, it’s better if it’s ‘cellar temp’ of 11–15° C (52–55° F), but anything consistent and below 20° C is preferred. If your garage stays consistently cool year round, awesome. You know your place. If a closet is best, or there’s a spot in your kitchen, try finding the most consistent and coolest spot you can.
Wine going through temperature swings (cold to hotter to colder) is reminiscent of mood swings, where one minute we’re fine, another laughing, and ten minutes later so upset we want to scream. Consistency in temp, like consistency in life, is key. If you can’t find a place, and you’re able to, a wine fridge is the best way to ensure the wine is kept at the right level, since you can program the wine fridges to be within that consistent, perfect range.
Most standard refrigerators rest around 3° C (37° F), and that’s winter penguin weather for a bottle of wine. The flavour compounds we love in wine will be bundled up in Edmonton-level parkas, shivering in their sip-tank and will take time to ‘warm up’ enough to unzip the downy coats and open back up. If you do end up having the fridge as your best spot, try keeping the bottle consistent. When you’re ready to consume that bottle of red, take it out of the fridge until it warms up for a while, then go for that corkscrew. Be careful of constant in’s and out’s. If it’s a white, maybe keep it in the fridge instead of back and forth from the fridge to the counter. Pour the glass, bottle back into its’ consistent home unless you know you’ll finish it.
And if you can’t, that’s fine, handheld vacuum pumps are under $20 and last for years. Not bad for saving wine from the dreaded pre-drink oxidization (article coming soon).
Ideals of keeping wine consistent are wonderful goals, but reality for most of us is vastly different. Modify the things you can, and hopefully understanding the things you can’t will help you do best by your bottle. Remember to drink your water, when you go tasting. I can’t wait to see both your tasting notes, and your selfie bombs of Ole Ogopogo the next time you’re in the Okanagan. Hopefully the roads will be rebuilt by then.
Next time, we’ll go through mature wines and what sort of special care they need to get the best glass.
