Keep Your Wine Cool or Taste the Consequences
Wine is a delicate beverage. Like many food products it is constantly evolving and reacting to the external environment. Therefore, it is no surprise that the quality of a wine can be greatly affected, damaged or even ruined should it be improperly transported or stored. In order to create the best environment for a wine to properly age, the temperature, humidity, light and stability (lack of vibrations) of the storage location must be monitored.
Maintaining a consistent temperature is particularly difficult if you are traveling. When carrying wine on a plane flight, do not put the wine in your checked luggage as there is no atmospheric control where the suitcases are stored. Also, the baggage compartment's below freezing temperatures and pressure may damage the wine. If you are touring wine country by car, especially in warm climates or seasons, try to keep the wine out of the trunk. Otherwise, during the day, the wine will heat up considerably, and as night falls so will the temperature. Think about keeping a large cooler in your trunk for those weekend jaunts, or bringing the wine into your hotel room at night.
Ask any winery operator and they will tell you stories of customers angrily contacting the winery because the wine they bought tasted different once they got it home. Usually, further investigation shows the wine took a long car trip locked up in the trunk. When visiting Oklahoma wineries, heat is probably the biggest threat to the quality your wines. Also, if the wine was not properly cared for during shipping to a retail liquor store, it may have been allowed to get to hot while in transit. This demonstrates one more excellent reason to buy wines directly from the source.
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