Spoilage in wine shipping, which haunts consumers, distributors and merchants, has become easily detectable.

California’s wine industry has begun using a temperature-sensitive label that for about two years had been confined to the food industry.

Downloaded into a computer via a manual reader, data show what temperatures occurred and when, thus fixing responsibility for cooked wine.

In Napa, WTN Services, which both distributes wine and sells it directly to consumers under a program called Ambrosia, pronounces itself happy with the labels, which are made by an Idaho company called PakSense.

Customers pay $20 a box for the labeling, a relatively small insurance premium for expensive wine.

In Sonoma, the Schug Carneros Estate Winery began placing PakSense labels on shipments early this year.

Written by Howard G Goldberg in New York

Howard G Goldberg
Howard G Goldberg
Decanter Magazine, Food & Wine Writer

Howard G Goldberg is a wine writer and critic based in New York City. He made his name writing about wine for The New York Times, where he worked for 34 years. He has written various books on food and wine, including Prime: The Complete Prime Rib Book and All About Wine Cellars. He compiled The New York Times Book of Wine – a collection of the publication’s best wine articles.