When deciding whether you can safely ship wine, consider some of these factors:
- How close is the recipient to you?
- What is the high temperature of the destination?
- What are the temperatures on the delivery path?
- What time does UPS/FedEx pick up from you?
- How long will the wine be in transit?
- What shipping method will you use (Ground, 2nd Day Air, Overnight, Priority Overnight)?
- What day of the week are you shipping (is it going over a weekend)?
- Are you using cold packaging?
- What bottle sizes are you shipping?
- Is the wine going to a residence, business, or UPS/FedEx center (deliveries tend to go to the latter two earlier in the day)?
- Will the recipient, so please help me god, be available for the first delivery attempt?
If you’re shipping wine to a business address a state over and are using Priority Overnight and cold packs, your wine might easily survive the 95˚ temperatures.
If you’re sending wine via Ground to the other side of the country in pulp over a weekend and the recipient doesn’t get it until the third attempt, it might get compromised at 72˚- It really just depends.
As most of us ship primarily via Ground, a good rule of thumb is if you expect the wine to spend more than a day in 75˚ temperatures, you probably want to start investigating other options (cold packaging, cold-chain, 2nd Day Air).
