The Wine Collector

Do you plan on doing a test for Ground shipment? If so, what type of temperature parameters would you use?

The short term priority is to focus on looking at 2-day and 3-day shipping next to see what combination of shipping speed and weather conditions are optinal to protect wine at the least cost to the consumer.

This post also provoked an inquiry from an entrepreneur with a new type of shipped that we are going to test. It seems to meet all of our parameters which are low package cost per use, low weight (which helps keeps freight costs low), high protection factor (10-11x Styro levels), and easy of assembly (so low labor costs). It's also reusable and non-toxic. More to come on that as soon as we can complete tests.

Good job on this test.
I do have a few questions for clarification:
This shipment traveled at night - as far as I can tell from the graph.
Am I to understand that the temperatures reached 102 during that time?
You can expect the air inside the shipper to be about 10 degrees F (+/-) than external air.
It looks like 1) the ambient temperatures never topped 85F (is this internal temp inside the shipper or the temp in the delivery vehicles? Delivery drives have told me that the inside of the van is about 10-15 degrees higher than outside temp on a sunny day) and 2) the package was delivered by 10:30 am.
Heat tends to peak around 2 pm. If it is feasible to send wines overnight - pickup from point of origin in the afternoon and delivery to recipient before noon, then this is a desirable solution for summer months.
I am, however, not certain that I am comforted by the idea that "thermal mass of 12 cooled bottles inside the Styro seems to buffer against air temperature fluctuations"
The heat energy has to be absorbed by the bottles and I suspect that more of that energy would be absorbed by bottles at the periphery of the shipper than in its center.
I look forward to your other results.

It left in late afternoon for delivery the next morning so "yes" it traveled by air at night. 102 was the high temperature for the arrival date in the destination city. There's no way for us to measure the air temperature outside the box at all times. The ambient temperature is the temp INSIDE the shipper. I agree the periphery is more exposed to heat which is why we put the probe in a bottle in the corner (max exposure).

Hot damn, this is fascinating!

I've often come home to a box of samples sitting on my porch in the Summer heat, wondering how long ago the box had been delivered. By and large, the wines were almost never perceptibly damaged by this, which often puzzled me. Interesting (and encouraging) to hear that the thermal mass acts as a buffer in some way.

Interesting test. Several comments come to mind. It has to be an exorbant cost to ship a 40 lb box priority overnight.How would this be cost effective? How would this test relate to a 3 tier state when pkg goes through extra handling. If future tests involving ground shipments to hot locales are in the works, I would gladly offer to help you out.As a wine retailer in the Phoenix area and working with several wine clubs we are always trying to look for new ways to offset potential heat damage/spoilage to wine shipments.

Hi Steve

Any updates on the other shipments?
I'd like to hear how your 2-day and 3-day shipments did.
I am very curious to know what happened. Particularly since after the test I did (and you saw) some calculations predicted some concerning results.
Perhaps we can partner to do some additional testing?