hi—just found this page randomly as I left several bottles of wine in my car—on the hottest day of the year so far! a friend moved and left a laundry basket full of booze for the taking. forgetting it was in my car, i found it the next afternoon, when outside temperatures were around 98, with a heat index around 106. Every cork pushed out! Several were the plastic variety, with nothing wrapping around them—no foil, etc. A few had foil and didn’t come out all the way, but pushed out enough (the foil barely kept them in). I imagine the car was over 200 degrees. I carried the basket inside and attempted to pull bottles out and… my hand was burned!!!! So heat CAN push a cork out. Hating to have all his wine ruined, and being a totally functioning alcoholic,  I’m going to try to drink it. If it’s awful, maybe a nice vinaigrette can be salvaged from it. Hopefully they are not all ruined, even if they were free.

jessica on 06/21/2010 (9:30 pm)

Radio Smuggles and Laura,

Heat can’t break the seal so easily on screwtop and boxed wines. It would be interesting to experiment with how much heat those seals can take—I’ve just never tried it.
Still, even if the cork doesn’t push out or the seal is not broken, heat does damage the contents.
Essentially, heating wine will artificially age it super-quickly.
What I take away from Robin Garr’s experiment is that a LIMITED amount of heat damage for a wine that will be drunk soon CAN be a good thing. My guess is that high temperatures for long periods probably will push a wine past its peak without much of a window in which to open it up while it’s good. In other words, if you want to age a nice Bordeaux or cult California cab for a few years, don’t store it in your garage or another hot spot.

Michael Hastings on 07/02/2008 (11:06 am)

Or boxed wine for that matter…there are more and more respectable boxed wines out there.

Laura Giovanelli on 07/01/2008 (11:37 am)

I wonder what heat does to a screw top wine?

Radio Smuggles on 06/27/2008 (10:02 am)