How to Get Your Wine Home (Without Ruining It)
You’re going to buy wine in Napa and Sonoma. That’s not a prediction, it’s a guarantee. The stuff tastes different when you’re standing where it was made, and you’ll want to bring that feeling home with you. But getting wine from here to your front door takes a little planning, especially if you’re visiting in the warmer months. Here’s what we tell every guest before their trip.
Don’t Cook Your Wine
Napa Valley and Sonoma can get hot. Not Phoenix hot (I grew up in Tucson, so I know the difference), but absolutely hot enough to damage wine left in a parked car.
At around 83°F, the pressure inside a sealed bottle can push the cork out of position. Once that happens, oxygen gets in, and oxygen is the enemy of any wine you’re hoping to drink later. At 86°F, you can start doing real damage in less than a day. The aroma oxidizes, the color shifts, the sulfur that preserves the wine drops off, and the damage is permanent. Push past 100°F and you’re looking at hours, not days.
The frustrating part? Most people don’t realize anything went wrong until they open the bottle at home. They loved the wine at the tasting, but now it tastes flat or off and they can’t figure out why. Nine times out of ten, heat damage on the trip home is the answer.
Keeping Your Wine Cool During Your Tour
You don’t need anything fancy here. Just a little awareness goes a long way.
If you’ve only picked up a few bottles, bring them inside with you at each stop. No winery is going to give you a hard time about it, and it beats leaving them in a hot car for four or five hours.
When bottles are in the car, keep them in the passenger area, not the trunk. Your car’s AC keeps the cabin cool. Your trunk is basically an oven.
If you’re planning to buy a case or more (and plenty of people do), start the day with an insulated wine shipping box. The styrofoam inserts do a surprisingly good job holding temperature throughout the day, and you’ll already have the box you need to check it as luggage or ship it home.
We keep an ice chest with ice packs in the car on every tour. If you’re driving yourself, it’s worth doing the same. A basic cooler from any grocery store works fine.
Getting Your Wine Home
You’ve got three realistic options: take it with you, have the winery ship it, or ship it yourself. Which one makes sense depends on how much wine you’re bringing back and how much hassle you want to deal with.
Take it with you. If you only have a couple bottles, wrap them well and tuck them in your checked luggage. WineSkins (padded bottle sleeves with a leak-proof seal) are sold everywhere in wine country, and they’re worth the few bucks for peace of mind. If you’re flying with a case or more, grab a wine shipping box locally and check it as an extra bag. It’s the cheapest option by far.
Have the winery ship it. Pretty much every winery will ship directly to your door, though state regulations mean some states are off limits. It’s convenient, but it’s also the most expensive route, especially if you’re buying a few bottles from several different wineries and paying separate shipping each time. Some wineries offer case-rate shipping discounts, so always ask. But if you’re spreading purchases across four or five stops, individual shipments add up fast.
Ship it yourself. This is what we recommend for most visitors. You collect bottles throughout your trip, consolidate everything into one shipment, and skip the headache of extra boxes at the airport.
Most wine country hotels have relationships with third-party shippers. Check with your front desk or concierge. If they offer the service, you just hand over your wine before checkout, fill out a form, and you’re done.
There are also standalone shipping companies in both Napa and Sonoma that do this all day long. The better ones offer weather-hold shipping, which is a big deal if you’re visiting in summer. Instead of paying for overnight air to beat the heat, they’ll hold your shipment until temperatures along the route drop to safe levels. It might take an extra week or two to arrive, but your wine shows up in perfect condition. In Napa, we’ve had consistently great experiences with Buffalo’s Shipping Post. For Sonoma, check the Sonoma County tourism website for a list of local shipping services.
One Less Thing to Worry About
When you book a tour with us, we handle the wine storage during the day. Ice chest, ice packs, every bottle accounted for. It’s one of those small details that makes the whole day easier, and it means you can focus on tasting instead of worrying about what’s baking in the backseat.
