If you love your wine, or even if you don’t and you’re transporting it for someone else, do not leave it in your car in the warm days of summer (or for that matter the frigid days of winter).
Wine when left unattended for long periods of time and exposed to the elements, extreme heat or cold, will at the very least be quite inconvenient with a raised cork and potentially leaking wine, and at its worst will entirely explode within the bottle, leaving a huge mess for you to clean up. If you leave it unattended for an hour or two, you may think it will be ok. It will not.
A car in the sun on pretty much any day gets warm; a car in the sun on a hot day gets hot and interior temperatures can reach well above 140 degrees. (Ever sit on hot leather on a hot day? OUCH!) Think of your wine sitting on the same hot leather. Would you leave perishables in your hot car? Would you leave milk in your hot car for any length of time? Starting to make sense? What would happen if you turned on your oven to 140 or 150 and put a glass of wine in there; how about a glass of beer? Same thing applies with wine. Don’t cook your wine in your car (or your oven).
Now, let’s look at the opposite. Winter weather. While it’s true that some foods will do just fine in winter weather (frozen foods for example in frozen temperatures will be fine), others are not meant to be in the extreme cold. What would happen though if you put your wine in your freezer for, let’s say 4 hours, 8 hours or more? Same thing will happen if left in your car in freezing temperatures. The liquid will freeze and pop the cork.
So, my friends, when transporting wine, keep in mind how long you may have to leave it in the vehicle, and if longer than an hour (or two at most), please take precautions — use a cooler to protect it, and if you can’t and you are one of my customers and bringing wine to your friends, please CALL ME and I will help you in any way possible.
