Bottle shock is the scourge of wine tasting. I have no greater problem with my customers enjoying
It is driving me crazy that my customers are drinking wines while they are still in bottle shock. Why? Because wines in bottle shock uniformly stink. And the scary thing is that the better a taster you are, the worse that bottle shock will affect your ability to enjoy a wine. People who think that they can “see through it” are simply wrong.
Now that I’m an importer, I’ve tasted numerous wines before shipping, immediately after shipping as well as a month or so later and the difference is astounding. The recently arrived (bottle shocked) wines are horrible even when the pre-shipping and month-post-shipping wines are terrific. I can’t tell what the bottle shocked wines should taste and I know what they are supposed to taste like as I’ve already had them. I used to think that I could, as a professional, taste through bottle shock - I was wrong.
I don’t get very many complaints about the wines I sell but almost all of the complaints that I do get about wine quality are from people who (after questioning) admit that they opened the wines within a week after they arrived. Some of these complaints are from industry professionals with tremendous expertise and excellent palates. For some reason, people still can’t tell the difference.
What is Bottle Shock and What Causes It?
Bottle shock is a temporary condition where shipping or other factors (like adding sulfites) messes with the way that the wine tastes.
What causes it? I have no idea. People have theorized that the different elements in the wine are knocked out of equilibrium, wrecking the taste of the wine. For those of you who doubt that is is possible, think the last time that you have tasted a wine evolve over several hours after being opened. This is from a short exposure to oxygen and possibly changes in temperature. Do you really think that being rattled around constantly in the back of a truck for a thousand or more miles will not cause some change in the wine?
What Can I Do To Cure Bottle Shock?
Please let your wines rest for 3 weeks after arrival. PLEASE. Winemakers slave over their vines for months on end, making incredible efforts to produce these wines. Please show them the courtesy of waiting 3 weeks to drink them. I actually place do not drink before dates (e.g. 8/12) on my bottles when they arrive to eliminate the risk of drinking my wines too soon.
The alternative is to open the wines when you get them and mix them with sliced oranges, lemons and a simple syrup and make sangria out of it - you may as well.
Why Are Bottle Shocked Wines Even Worse for Better Tasters
Better tasters have a more advanced ability to appreciate the complex aromatics and balance in well made wines. It is exactly these characteristics that are destroyed by bottle shock. There still may be some fruit that a novice taster will appreciate but an advanced taster will almost universally hate a wine in bottle shock (or at a minimum perceive it as being of much lower quality than it is).
How Does This Affect Wines Bought at Traditional Retail and in Restaurants
The same way. The only thing is that you have no idea when the wines arrived and the retailer or restaurant will likely not even know when the wine arrived at the local warehouse.
Restaurants are generally short on cash and like to keep small inventories of wines. They don’t let the wines rest before serving them. Now if a wine was delivered to them after a short journey from a local warehouse, this may not be a problem. But if the wine just arrived from Europe or it was sitting on a truck for a substantial journey, than it may be. To be honest, we don’t know how much of a journey will cause how much bottle shock.
As for retailers, they are in the business of moving wine. They buy from cash starved distributors who need to get rid of wine as soon as it hits their warehouses. So that great new hot arrival at your local retailer? There’s a decent chance it just hit the distributor warehouse and was turned around to sell to the retailer. If you trust your retailer, ask them when the wine got there. If you don’t, wait 3 weeks before you drink it.
Conclusion
Anyone who has gotten this far in this rant cares about wine. A lot. Wine consumers spend hours reading about wines, tasting them, talking about them and sourcing them. If you are going to spend that much effort (and money) sourcing the best wines that you can find, please spend the extra second of thought and don’t drink the wine when it is in bottle shock and not tasting the way that it should.
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