While there are tons of gadgets out there designed to improve wine and your enjoyment of it, there is one simple thing that can have the most dramatic effect but is often overlooked…temperature. We all know that red wine should be served at “room temperature” and white wine should be served cold, but that leaves a lot wiggle room. At home, and even at many of the nicest restaurants, we consistently serve white wine too cold and red wine too warm. This mistake can ruin a bottle of wine but increasing or decreasing the temperature by even a few degrees can dramatically transform it and bring the wine back to life.
White Wine
White wine should be served chilled. For most of us that means taking a bottle directly out of the refrigerator and pouring a glass. This is where problems emerge. The ideal range to serve white wine is between 45 and 53 degrees depending on the wine, but the safe temperature for a refrigerator is between 34 and 40 degrees. This means you are drinking the wine 15 – 20 degrees colder than you should. As a wine gets colder its fruit and flavor can be dramatically muted. While this can hide flaws in lower quality wines, it also reduces the flavor which is the entire reason you bought the wine in the first place. On the other side, as the wine warms up the bigger fruit flavors become more apparent to the point that it can eventually become flabby and viscous.
Consider the rich, ripe fruit flavors of your California Chardonnay at 50°. They will disappear when it is served at 36° right out of the fridge. All that is left is a skeleton of acidity, oak, alcohol and, if present, residual sugar. The flavor that provides the flesh and body of the wine had been lost and you’re left with the unpleasant shell. If you allow this same wine to warm up 10 – 15 degrees the flavor will reemerge and the wine will return to balance.
Ideal Temperature Range for White Wine:
Full Bodied Whites: 46 - 54°
Dry, Light Bodied Whites: 44 - 50°
Sweet White Wines: 42 - 48°
Sparkling Wine: 42 - 46°
Dessert Wine: 38 - 40°
*Serve lower quality wines on the cooler end and higher quality wines on the warmer end of the temperature range.
Red Wine
This is the time of year when temperature can play a huge role in your enjoyment of wine. We’re at the point where it is too warm for the heat to come on but too cool to warrant turning on the air conditioning. The temperature in my house is creeping up to the mid to high 70s during the day which in turn means the red wine I have sitting around is also getting warmer. This shift in ambient temperature is the driving force behind the red wine in the winter, white wine in the summer shift that many people go through each year. The same red wine that tasted great at 65 degrees when your house was cooler during the winter starts to taste flabby and cloyingly fruit driven at 75 degrees when your house gets warmer during the summer.
This can easily be fixed by putting your red wine in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes before you open it. When I’m at home I will often open a bottle of red and taste it. If it seems too warm and overly syrupy or fruit driven, I’ll put it in the refrigerator for a little while then try it again. It’s amazing how much of a different 5 degrees can make. I’ll even ask for an ice bucket at a restaurant to chill down a too warm bottle of red. People might look at me funny but I’m not “chilling” the red wine, I’m simply lowering the temperature of a wine that was too warm.
Ideal Temperature Range for Red Wine:
Full Bodied New World Reds: 60 - 65°
(Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah etc.)
Pinot Noir, Cotes du Rhone, Bordeaux: 58 - 63°
Zinfandel: 58 - 61°
Rioja, Italian Reds: 57 - 62°
Beaujolais: 55 - 56°
*Ideal temperature will vary from wine to wine so don’t be afraid to play around with the temperature.
In conclusion, don’t be afraid to play around with the temperature of the wine you are drinking. Try putting a bottle of red into or taking a bottle of white out of the refrigerator for 20 minutes before serving it. If a white is served bone chillingly cold at a restaurant try cupping your hands around the glass and swirling it for thirty seconds. This will quickly raise the temperature 2 or 3 degrees and bring out more of the flavor. The more you experiment to more you’ll realize how much of a difference the temperature can make in your enjoyment of a glass of wine.
