We all learned many things during the pandemic. One of them to survive everything being closed was shipping wine in the summer, without paying $300 for air shipping! Tablas Creek (one of our winery inspirations) did a detailed article on summer shipping in 2020.

In general some exposure to modest heat isn’t detrimental, and after 2 years of testing, and our unwavering commitment to quality, we have the utmost confidence in summer shipping, even to the East coast, with these suggestions and guidelines.  If you live on the West coast (detailed below) shipping by default is already overnight or 2 day anyway, and mostly risk free.

Risk Mitigation Processes and Suggestions

• We time weather windows both for extreme heat and what days of the week we ship. When needed we also have 6 and 12 bottle styrofoam, though we prefer not to use.
• William personally takes your shipment directly to the main UPS depot in Santa Rosa after 5 pm where they are immediately processed and go out that night. No riding around on brown trucks for hours after a pickup.
• In general, its the day of delivery (at this time UPS trucks have no AC) that causes risk. If your delivery is at the end of the day, or worse yet you miss your delivery, is where the wine can be at risk. To avoid this we have two suggestions:
  1. Ship to the UPS office nearest you, where you will have 5 days to pickup. You can find a list of nearby locations here, and even store it in your Two Shepherds profile for future use.
  2. Ship to your office address if possible – business is typically prioritized over residential.
• We do have the ability to ship UPS 1-3 day air. Those options are not available on the website, but can be custom quoted if wish.
• Our bottles have no foil allowing you to immediately inspect the cork for seepage – dark marks that show the seal is failing.
• Our cans, summer wines etc all ship fine and have been tested with heat exposure. Wines that have been aged 3+ years, library wines, should probably not be shipped East of Colorado in July and August, unless in styrofoam.
• West coast shipping is generally almost risk free. CA orders arrive next day, often in the morning, especially in SoCal. Orders to WA and OR are usually 2 day, CO 3 day, and again we may sit on your order a few days just to be extra safe.

If you have any questions or concerns, reach out!