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 One barrel of wine, it has
been said, can work more miracles than a church full of
saints. But not if it’s been left out in the sun
At
a recent dinner party at an exclusive Singapore
restaurant, the proprietor enthusiastically encouraged a
choice from a selection of air-freighted and expensive
wines. But the wine chosen, a 2004 Domaine Leroy
Vosne-Romanee burgundy of great repute and equivalent
price, was a mess, with the cork breaking through both a
wax top and lead capsule and the wine cloudy as a result
of a protein haze, as unfiltered, un-fined wholesome
pinot noirs are prone to do when mistreated. Temperature
extremes had ruined it.
Regrettably this happens all too often. And, with Asian
consumers increasingly turning to wine, too often they
don’t realize that they are being stuck with bottles
that have been mistreated from the time they leave the
vineyard to the time they end up on the table. All this
adds credence to the widely held theory that Asia is a
dumping ground for cheap wine, making it difficult for
conscientious suppliers.
Certainly, demand is soaring upwards across a region
still largely inexperienced at buying and drinking wine.
According to a 2006 study by Vinexpo,
wine consumption rose by 150 percent between 2000
and 2005 across Asia. Another study suggests that while
North American consumption is slated to grow an average
of 5 percent annually, by contrast Asia’s growth will be
closer to 10 to 20 percent, with the greatest rise in
China, India, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines
and Malaysia.
But at tasting panels and many trade tastings and
functions over the year around Asia, an alarming number
of wines across all price points have been out of
condition and clearly associated with poor storage and
handling. Contributing to this is the desire to satisfy
demand of lower price points against the hindrances of
prohibitive duties and taxes and extortionate margins in
establishments that do not provide commensurate levels
of service and due care.
Certainly consumers need educating. A friend we will
call only Robert the Brave (or perhaps Robert the Rash)
used to go to Manila and buy entire pallets of fine wine
that he could pick up for a song. But there is no
telling how much of it he had to simply throw away or
use for cooking, because so much of it was bad.
Too often along the supply chain, people tend to forget that wine
in fact is a living thing that undergoes a delicate,
continuing transformation of chemistry and integration
of organisms. It is almost as fragile and spoilable as
any other fresh produce and requires specialized
handling from production to consumption. Even those who
are acquainted with wine often disregard this, believing
that wine is resilient in its youth and that the bottle
it lives in is sufficiently robust protection. Robert
the Brave found this out far too many times. There is a
great likelihood in Asia that wine will be "cooked"
before it even reaches the docks, unless importers use
refrigerated containers for ocean freighting.
The fact is that given too-often unsophisticated
consumers, too many exporters, importers, retailers and
restaurants know they can get away with serving wines
whose quality has simply been broiled away by a tropical
sun, a lack of temperature control and collusion between
wineries, wine exporters, importers, merchants,
retailers and restaurants to turn profits and meet
burgeoning demand.
Less expensive wines intended for early consumption are
the most mistreated. Yet the reality is that all wine is
highly susceptible to temperature fluctuations, light
and oxygen. The biggest problem is inadequate storage,
with non-air conditioned warehouses irreversibly
altering wine's chemistry and prematurely accelerating
the ageing process. Excessive heat can also force the
cork upwards, breaking its seal and leading to
oxidation. A sure sign of this is wine stains in a vein
down the sides of the cork.
Similarly, many wine stores and supermarkets turn their
air-conditioning off during non-trading hours, causing
temperatures to fluctuate wildly. Another common
occurrence in supermarkets is overexposure to high
levels of
ultraviolet light from fluorescent bulbs. This has a
degenerative effect on the organic compounds of wine,
causing aroma and flavor to deteriorate.
Even if wine is stored in temperature-controlled
warehouses, humidity is often insufficient. While it
might seem inconceivable that anywhere in the tropics
would be too dry, air-conditioners dehydrate the air and
in the same manner as wine left too long in the fridge
will dry out the cork, so too can warehouses, shopping
malls and supermarkets.
The cost of a reefer is almost three times the amount of
a normal dry box container, a deterrent in a highly
competitive sector. The temperature inside a container
is affected by both radiated and conducted energy. If
the outside temperature hits 40C, as it can in Australia
during the summer, the inside of a container can go as
high as 60C. At 35C, corks will begin to move and it
only takes a few hours to affect a wine's chemistry,
with the sustained high temperatures of a 10-day sea
journey effectively quadrupling the aging process.
Shipping wine in the harsh European winter is equally
hazardous. At minus 5C wine will freeze, and at 0C
certain wines will throw an unsightly tartrate crystal
deposit.
There is a high probability that heat will affect the
wine even before it reaches the sea container if
temperature-controlled transport doesn’t pick it up from
the vineyard. This is often the case in Europe where
inland transport is prohibitively expensive, conceivably
double the cost of the ocean-freight component. Again,
inexpensive wines are the main victims.
All of the issues are easily surmountable. Dedicated
wine logistics companies have offices in almost every
wine-producing region and major city in the world and
they only use vehicles that are temperature-controlled
for wine transport and have temperature-controlled
warehouses.
Such firms will be equally emphatic about the use of
reefer containers, providing the quantities are
sufficient (approximately 750 cases). For smaller
shipments, consolidated freight services are unavoidable
and are rarely offered in refrigerated containers. Most
consolidated freight (wine) services use the latest in
insulation liners made of energy-reflecting material
that turns a dry container into a food-grade container.
Coupled with below-deck storage, this substantially
reduces sharp temperature fluctuations, and while not
ideal, is the most cost-effective and practical.
Nor is air-freighting infallible despite usually being
associated to super-premium or collectable and mature
wines. There is an illusion that the polystyrene packing
is sufficient protection. Most of the conventional
airfreight companies that amateurs use have no
idea how to treat wine, and within their cumbersome
logistics they unintentionally mistreat wine, both in
the air and on the ground. Freight forwarders rarely
take any measures to compensate for the fact the
aircraft cargo hold has no resemblance to the
pressurized and temperature controlled passenger
environment.
There have been several investigations surrounding these
issues, the most conclusive coming from the US Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) which uncovered
“temperature ranges in the cargo hold from zero to 104
degrees F (40C) reported in a single flight.” However,
this doesn’t begin to give a full picture of the searing
temperatures of airport tarmacs and the invariable
delays, with temperatures in the cargo hold soaring to
boiling point.
The extremes of in-flight temperature are compounded on
the ground with near-freezing wine rapidly rising in
temperature and exposed to perilous conditions when
unloaded, then sitting in non-temperature controlled
warehouses awaiting customs clearance, which sometimes
can be days, even weeks.
If these detrimental conditions were not enough, final
delivery is rarely in temperature-controlled vehicles
and can be delayed or even result in the wine being
returned to the warehouse if there is no one available
to sign for the goods. Consumers would be well advised
to use logistics companies associated with handling food
and perishables, as they will have dedicated airline
food grade cargo containers that are temperature
controlled and maintain a certain atmosphere. It may be
more expensive, but there is no point going to the
trouble of having irreversibly damaged wine sent by
airfreight.
Winemakers are increasingly concerned that their product
reach the table in optimum condition but are constrained
by the minority of reputable merchants whose portfolios
are already bursting. Smart microchip technology is
beginning to play a role with radio frequency
identification (RFID) whereby small tags are attached to
cartons that can track shipments and monitor the
temperature that the wine has been exposed to. It is
only a matter of time before this technology is attached
to the wine labels itself and consumers will be able to
identify if a wine has been mistreated.
Then there is screwcap technology, which eliminates all
the problems associated with cork inadequacies and,
moreover, avoids cork taint (mould caused by the
chemical TCA or trichloraninsole). Screwcaps don’t
prevent the chemistry changes caused by excessive heat
or light, but they go a long way toward buffering the
effects of rough treatment, primarily invalidating the
oxidative problems associated with cork movement, but
also combating the uncongenial environments of
supermarkets, badly designed stores, restaurant
conditions and the expectation that wine will survive
vertical floor stacks, display shelves, long sojourns in
restaurateurs' fridges and variables of home
consumption.
While New World producers - mainly Australia and New
Zealand - have been quick to realize the benefits of
screwcaps, European producers, particularly the French,
stubbornly cling to tradition or marketability as an
excuse to persist with cork.
Reputable merchants with excellent standards and
integrity do exist in most Asian cities and are
deserving of more support from wine consumers and the
hospitality industry, who at the same time should be
isolating the irresponsible opportunists.
Curtis Marsh, a veteran wine importer and sommelier,
is one of Asia’s most authoritative writers on food,
drink and travel. Visit
www.thewanderingpalate.com
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