Have you ever had the feeling that a bottle of wine you know really well does not taste as you expected it to after it has travelled with you? Have you ever been disappointed with wines you have brought home after a trip? If your answer is ‘yes’, then it’s possible you dismissed your reaction and thought it was your memory of the wine that was at fault.
However, there are plenty of anecdotal comments on wine forums, blogs and websites claiming that wines definitely do suffer after being transported. The term used for this is travel shock. (Note that ‘travel shock’ should not be confused with ‘bottle shock’, which is the term used to describe wine soon after bottling.)
Descriptions of the effects of travel shock on wine include: muted flavours, a disjointed or austere palate, a hollow mouthfeel, a burning sensation of alcohol, rough and edgy tannins, as well as a general lack of harmony. Furthermore, there seems to be a consensus that wine that has travelled recovers after a period of rest. However, there has been no scientific work published on whether air or road transport does genuinely affect the sensory properties of wine.
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