Anyone have a trick...

I will be taking one or more older wines to Ann Arbor with me in a few days, and wondered if anyone knows of a trick to hasten the settlement of any fine particle sediment. I will have the wine in a Styrofoam shipper and the bottle(s) will be standing upright inside the air conditioned vehicle the whole way. Thinking out loud, but I wonder if chilling the wine upon arrival might help?

Freeze it a home, thaw it on arrival.

Regards, Bob

I will be taking one or more older wines to Ann Arbor with me in a few days, and wondered if anyone knows of a trick to hasten the settlement of any fine particle sediment. I will have the wine in a Styrofoam shipper and the bottle(s) will be standing upright inside the air conditioned vehicle the whole way. Thinking out loud, but I wonder if chilling the wine upon arrival might help?

No, if anything it might hurt slightly by increasing the viscosity of the wine ever-so-slightly. In an ideal world, just put them into an ultracentrifuge and hit 'em with 20K RPM for a minute. Since you're unlikely to have an ultracentrifuge at hand in Ann Arbor (I could give you some contacts at U of M if you'd like), my advice would be to pack your wines to minimize jostling in the car. That means not putting them in a shipper, but rather swaddling them in cloth or something (the moving scene from Dorothy Sayers' "Busman's Honeymoon" comes to mind). How about a custom manufactured foam shipper that's made from a much less stiff foam?

More practically, since Semi-CoOL is still ten days away, why not ship them to the hotel to await your arrival? That'd give them a week of resting before the event.

Mark Lipton

There's that thin, flexible foam that's sometimes used in shippers from various sources - about 1/8" thick. That, if you use the shippers that are split on the sides of the wine bottles, would serve the purpose of Bunter's blankets.

Freeze it a home, thaw it on arrival.

I really like this idea, Bob!

Both Bob and I have had great luck in freezing wine in the past, Cynthia. Should work pretty well.

Crystals! Try one under the bottle when you get to where you're going. Can't hurt!

Strain it through a few layers of panty hose - washed and clean, of course.

Bob, I'm sorry -- I forgot about the wine expanding in a full bottle as the wine freezes -- not a useful idea I'm afraid.

Regards, Bob

Crystals! Try one under the bottle when you get to where you're going. Can't hurt!

Do Weinsteine count? Personally, I'd try "pyramid power" first.

Mark Lipton

[Jenise]

Mark, agreed about the need to minimize jostling, but the styro shippers are fine as long as they're floated on something for shock absorption. We use down pillows under the box and between it and the back of the seat and car door, if applicable. Works pretty well.

Mark, agreed about the need to minimize jostling, but the styro shippers are fine as long as they're floated on something for shock absorption. We use down pillows under the box and between it and the back of the seat and car door, if applicable. Works pretty well.

Jenise,
I agree that your approach should do a decent job of absorbing shock, but in a general sense you are better off not aggregating the bottles into a larger rigid package because that amplifies rotational motion of the wine. By isolating each bottle independently of the others, you could have one bottle rise relative to the others without creating much internal turbulence. I don't know how significant the difference is, but there will be a difference.

Mark Lipton

[Robin Garr]

I don't see that chilling on arrival would do anything but make the wine cold, Bob.

I have a similar only even more challenging problem: I'll be flying in to the Ann Arbor events, with whatever wines I bring packed in checked luggage, where there's no reasonable way to protect them from some shaking.

I'm thinking I'll have to resolve this by bringing interesting, worthy wines but avoiding sediment-heavy or unfiltered reds.

Any other thoughts from the gurus here assembled?

[Jenise]

I'm thinking I'll have to resolve this by bringing interesting, worthy wines but avoiding sediment-heavy or unfiltered reds.

Any other thoughts from the gurus here assembled?

Yellow Tail probably travels well.

[Robin Garr]

Yellow Tail probably travels well.

Trying to get me thrown out of MoCool?

Hi Bob, sounds like a good suggestion at first glance, but of course full bottles might well push out the corks while freezing. Plus a few of these wines will be from the mid 80's and (for me) irreplaceable. I think Marks idea of pre-shipping is the right track. Guess though that I should check with the hotel first. Hey, hop a plane and come for Semi-Cool Saturday, you and Janet?

Love to come, Bob, especially with such nice people, not to say wines. But end of August is Janet's birthday and we celebrate at least three times -- three dinners currently planned, and a Willie Nelson concert.

Have fun!

Regards, Bob

Bob,
out of curiosity how have you handled it in the past? I assume as a long term Mo'Cooler you've carried older bottles in the past.

While my ideal is always for a bottle to sit upright in place for a few days beforehand, I carry bottles fairly regularly to offlines in a shoulder bag - cushioned, but I'm guessing they get a lot more shaking as I go up train/subway steps than the back of most modern automobiles. As do most of my offline mates. Maybe not ideal, but bottles don't seem to show less well overall. If wine is sturdy enough, I double decant first, but usually not with older bottles (unless they are '86 Bdx or something similar).

I try very hard not to open bottles after shipment, but that is on the assumption that the back of a UPS truck or hold of a ship isn't too gentle. It seems to me that with some good cushioning you should be fine, as long as you have a few hours for settling.

Frankly, as far as fine sediment, most of us probably free plenty just walking up stairs from our cellars.

Strain it through a few layers of panty hose - washed and clean, of course.

A coffee filter would work also.

[Jenise]

Strain it through a few layers of panty hose - washed and clean, of course.

A coffee filter would work also.

But it's not nearly as sexy.

Bob wrote:and a Willie Nelson concert.


Hey, I was country, when country wasn't cool!

Freeze it a home, thaw it on arrival.

Regards, Bob

This is a fascinating idea! I will remember this one. *writes it down*

I'm thinking I'll have to resolve this by bringing interesting, worthy wines but avoiding sediment-heavy or unfiltered reds.

Any other thoughts from the gurus here assembled?

Yellow Tail probably travels well.

Why bother with a bottle of Yellow Tail?

Strain it through a few layers of panty hose - washed and clean, of course.

A coffee filter would work also.

But it's not nearly as sexy.

Panty hose are not sexy. However, stockings and a garter belt.....