Wave goodbye to heat damage

If you've ever bought wine from an interstate cellar door or retailer, hopefully you've been told of a "heat policy" that delays delivery of wine at certain times of the year. Like right now.

With a heatwave gripping much of Australia, it's timely to consider what happens to wine when it's shipped with regular postal carriers or couriers.

There isn't much available in the way of specialised wine delivery service in this big brown land, and Australia Post is not only increasing its rates but slowing delivery times, in my opinion trying to force people to use their more expensive express service.

The lack of proper service is a real concern for Eurocentric Wine Imports, which has always had a "driving" concern about the heat-sensitive (or rather insensitive) handling of wine by some parties entrusted with its care. We use temperature-controlled trucks in Europe, a shipping container set at 14C for the duration of the journey from warehouse to warehouse across the high seas, and a 14C storage facility in Sydney. Transport across Australia has been the missing piece of the puzzle.

Where possible, Sydney deliveries are done in an airconditioned vehicle, but interstate despatches have required an eye on weather forecasts along the intended route. And we don't send wine interstate on Thursdays or Fridays to ensure it doesn't sit around in unsuitable conditions over the weekend.

This has come to a head with the 40C+ heat in the Adelaide region at the same time our Perth agency, Terra Wines, has been going gangbusters getting listings for Dombeya, Knebel, Emrich-Schonleber, Ployez-Jacquemart and others.

It seems every customer wants to list the wines -- and now. Terra quickly ran out of stock and put in an urgent request for a top-up, but we weren't about to ship (especially Champagne) when we knew the wine would be unprotected in the back of a truck for more than two days. OK, the trucks use two drivers and go virtually non-stop, but there is still a chance of heat damage as the wine cruises out of Sydney and thunders over to Adelaide, across the Nullarbor and into Perth.

Then, just when it looked like Adelaide was going to get some respite from the heat, the forecast for Sydney was several days of heat, and once that passes Perth is set for a temperature rise. And we're not even in summer yet!

Enough was enough, and after many frustrating phone calls to freight companies who admitted they couldn't deliver, we struck gold with a firm that does daily runs across the country. The Perth pallet was booked in, we get to choose a temperature down to 2C, the wines never leave that environment until they reach Terra's airconditioned warehouse, and everyone's happy.

We can also make temperature-controlled deliveries for order of eight cases or more to Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne, and we'll be working on securing proper facilities there so we can store and dispatch smaller orders from each city, thus saving time and avoiding the risk of damage.

It's one of the reasons Eurocentric was formed -- to treat customers and their wine with the respect they deserve. We trust you'll appreciate the difference in your glass.