Wine Journey: A Methodology for Analysing Wine Shipping Route Based on Temperature and Risk

Chile is currently the fourth-largest wine-exporting country in the world. Most of the wine is transported in dry containers, exposing it to the prevailing temperature conditions during its maritime transport, which can affect its quality. Transport decisions are mostly based on costs, with the least cost route being preferred usually, without considering the potential temperature risks. In this study, we develop a decision support model for the shipping route selection problem, considering the temperature risk during maritime transport. To achieve this, we construct a model that considers the internal container temperature information obtained from 167 shipments of wine and determines the correlation with the external temperature. Because the external temperature is available through the global NCEP-NCAR database, we can determine the internal container temperature of any shipping route. We also present a set of temperature risk indices, which allows us to assess the risk to the wine shipment for a specific route. The results indicate a good forecasting performance for our model, with low mean accumulated deviation and root mean squared error values. We validate this model by applying it to a group of routes and show that the lowest-cost route can have the highest risk for wine quality. Hence, a more expensive and less risky alternative route should be considered.