What happens to a bottle of wine between the vineyard and your table is crucial to its quality. Curtis Marsh explains.

Saturday, January 6, 2007

Many consumers are unaware that wine is a perishable product, a "living thing" that undergoes a delicate, continuous transformation of chemistry and integration of organisms.

Even those who are acquainted with wine often disregard these facts, believing that it is resilient in its youth and that the glass bottle it lives in is sufficiently robust protection.

Less expensive wine intended for early consumption, coerced by sensitive price points, is often the most mistreated. Yet the reality is, all wine is extremely fragile and highly susceptible to temperature fluctuations, light and oxygen.

The transportation and storage of wine in sub-tropical Hong Kong, with its variable temperatures and extremes, is problematic. This requires both shipping and storage facilities that are temperature-controlled. However, this is far from standard practice with many inexperienced or erroneous small-scale wine importers, mainly due to the relatively liberal customs and liquor licensing laws in Hong Kong.

The predominant problem is inadequate storage, with the heat in a non- air-conditioned warehouse irreversibly altering the wine's chemistry and prematurely accelerating the aging process, all to its detriment. It is also feasible that excessive heat will force the cork upwards, breaking its critical seal and leading to oxidation. A sure sign of this is wine stains in a vein down the sides of the cork.

Even if wine is stored in a warehouse that is temperature-controlled, there is often insufficient humidity, which dries out the cork causing it to shrink, again breaking its all-important seal. It may seem inconceivable that there would be lack of humidity anywhere in Hong Kong. However, air-conditioners dehydrate the air and in the same manner as wine left too long in fridge will dry out the cork, so too will environments such as warehouses, shopping malls and supermarkets.

Similarly, there are wine stores and supermarkets that turn their air- conditioning off during non-trading hours, causing significant fluctuations in temperature.

Another common occurrence in supermarkets is over-exposure to high levels of ultraviolet light emitted from fluorescent bulbs. This has a degenerative effect on the organic compounds of wine causing deterioration in aroma and flavor.

All that said, there is a greater chance of wine being "cooked" before it even reaches Hong Kong's docks, should the importer not use a refrigerated container (reefer) for the ocean freighting.

Again, this is prevalent with less- expensive wines. The cost of a reefer is almost three times the amount of a normal container (dry box), a deterring factor in this highly competitive sector.

The temperature inside a container is affected by both radiated and conducted energy. If you consider an outside temperature of 40 degrees Celsius, as it is in Australia now for example, the inside of a container will conceivably be 60C. At 35C corks will begin to move and it only takes a few hours of this heat level to afflict 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.

Complicating matters further is the high probability that wine will be heat- affected before it even reaches the sea-container, if temperature controlled transport is not employed for collection 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 if you use the right shipping firm. I would strongly advise all wine importers to use the most regarded of wine-

dedicated logistics companies, JF Hillebrand. It has offices in almost every wine-producing region and major city in the world and is equally emphatic about the use of reefer containers, providing the quantities are sufficient (approximately 750 cases). For smaller shipments, it offers a consolidated freight service, although only in reefers from France, apparently a disappointing reflection of customer demand. All wine collected from vineyards by JF Hillebrand is transported in vehicles that are temperature-controlled to temperature-controlled warehouses.

Although reefers are the ideal mode of shipping by sea, the company also offers the more cost-effective option of using 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. Visit its Web site for information on all aspects of shipping wine: www.jfhillebrand.com (Hong Kong office: 2798 1908).

It is not my intention to intimidate or dishearten your enthusiasm for wine with this explanation of shipping logistics. To the contrary, I hope the information will increase awareness so that next time you are communicating with your wine merchant, prudently enquire about how they ship and store their wine. If super-premium wine is involved, then shipment by reefer and impeccable storage conditions is imperative.

Winemakers are increasingly concerned that their product reaches 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 the temperature that the wine has been exposed to. It is only a matter of time before this technology is attached to the wine label itself and consumers will be able to identify if a wine has been mistreated.

Reputable merchants with excellent standards do exist in Hong Kong. One such merchant is Altaya Wines (www.altayawines.com) which is uncompromising in its handling of wine, shipping in refrigerated containers, regardless of price-point.

It is pertinent that I mention screwcap technology which eliminates all the problems associated with cork inadequacies and, moreover, avoids cork taint (mould caused by the chemical TCA or trichloraninsole). While New World producers - mainly Australia and New Zealand - have been quick to realize the benefits of screwcap, it is mind-boggling how many European producers, particularly the French, stubbornly cling to tradition or marketability as an excuse to persist with cork. The irony is that the most respected screwcap manufacturer, Stelvin, is based in France.

While screwcap technology does not prevent the chemistry changes caused by excessive heat or light, it goes a long way toward buffeting the effects of rough treatment, the uncongenial environments of supermarkets, badly designed stores and restaurant conditions, expectations that wine will survive vertical floor stacks and display shelves, and long sojourns in restaurateurs fridges. So expect me to have a lot more to say on the subject of screwcap verses cork.

“Curtis Marsh, a veteran wine importer and sommelier, is an Asia-based writer on wine, food and travel.”

Hong Kong Standard Weekend Magazine, All Rights Reserved.