Wine Temperature
Cool Is The Name Of The Game

Believe or not, most people serve wine at the wrong temperature. They tend to serve white wines too cold (right out of the fridge) and red wines too warm.

Here’s why wine temperature matters:

• White wines too cold tend to be flavorless.
• White wines too warm tend to taste too much of alcohol and are flat. Ever taste warm champagne? Yuck.
• Red wines too cold tend to be acidic and metallic.
• Red wines too warm are also too alcoholic and exacerbate tannins.

It’s a misconception that reds should be served at room temperature. That goes back to unheated medieval castles with room temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s. When it’s that cool inside, you need wine to warm up.

So the moral of the story is to serve white wines chilled (40 - 50 degrees) and red wines cool (below room temperature near 55 - 65 degrees). The best way to do this is to store it a wine cooler or wine refrigerator (not to be confused with your regular fridge).

But, if your wine temperature is not right - here’s what you do…White wine too cold? Just let it sit at room temperature for 10 - 15 minutes before serving it out of the fridge (it shouldn‘t be stored there in the first place). By the way, don’t microwave it to warm it up! Just kidding, but I suppose someone would be silly enough to do that.

Wine too warm? Put it into an ice bucket for 15 minutes. For red wine, a short stint in the fridge can cool it down a bit if needed. Another option is a wine chiller. Just insert the bottle in the chiller until it cools down. There are also chiller sleeves that you can keep in the freezer. Then wrap the bottle in the sleeve until it’s cool.

For white wine only: If you just can’t wait, you can drop in a small ice cube into the glass to cool it down. Some wine lovers will think I’m nuts but as long as you don’t dilute it too much, it’s OK. Don’t do this for red wine.

Optimally, the lighter, fruitier wines should be cooler and the heavier tannic and oaky wines should be warmer.

If you really want to get fancy, there are wine thermometers you can use. One is a cuff style with a digital display that fits around the outside of the bottle. The other is a deep probe that goes into the wine itself like the type you use to test the temperature of a turkey in the oven.

Amazon offers an excellent selection of coolers and accessories.

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