Oliver McCrum wrote:Tom, didn't you do an experiment with this once?
Oliver,
In a study my LosAlamos group did on travelling effects on wine. Two btls of each wine. One set stored in wine cellar..
The "travelled" btls were stuck in fridge at night, average temp in mid-30F. During the day, they were stuck out in a
solar greenhouse. For the whites, average daily temp about 78F, getting up to about 95F. For the reds, avg daily temp
For the reds, avg daily temps were about 115F, getting up to 128F max, 92F min. At each transfer from fridge--> solar
greenhouse, the "travelled" btls were shooken vigorously as only the wrist of an epee guy could do. On the wines stored
in the greenhouse, they were stood upright. In a couple of btls showed movement of corks by around 1/4", as I recall.
Did the A/B blind comparison on the 6 whites/6 reds. On the 95% confidence level, we could detect no case for a "travelling"
effect. Certainly, I did not detect any "cooked" character in any of the wines.
Of course, this is a badly flawed study if you already know the "truth". No way that we could guarantee the wines were identical
before we did the "travelling", that was just assumed. The temps didn't get high enough. The colds didn't get cold enough. I only did
the "travelling" on the wines for 1 week. The "travelled" wines should have rested in the cellar 1.64 weeks, instead of the 2 days we used.
They were still suffering from the "travelling" when I brought the wines back from the store a month before.
An on & on & on. But I felt the study, brutal as it was, suggested that the "travelling" effect may be overstated.
As far as the question of "cooked" wines, the study has no relevance. Especially if you know that 4 hrs at 90F will "cook" a wine.
Some would argue that this "cooked" character will not show up in the wine until 2.3, or 5.9, or 11.472 yrs down the road and you can't
taste "cooked" character in a wine immediately. Could be they're right...I'm clueless.
Tom