What’s The Correct Temperature To Serve Wine?
Author: artmaraut13 // Category: Wine Spirits ArticlesMany times in my wine courses, somebody will ask whats the proper temperature to serve wine? The real answer is whatever temperature you prefer. The actual answer is like all things in wine, it’s solely subjective. But lets have a look at some axioms below that may help you to get started.
Occasionally during a wine class, someone will think that I am serving wine that is too hot. I dig slightly deeper and realise they are used to drinking their wine straight from the refrigerator. The problem with that is that most refrigerators are set to about 40 degrees.
That’s superb for lager or colas, but way to cold for wine. If a wine is too cold, it loses most of its flavor. Literally the flavor molecules slow down and you lose the aromas that are so vital to wine tasting. If it is too warm, it’s just not refreshing.
The perfect temperature for whites is about 55 degrees. At 55, it’s still cool enough to be refreshing and feel chilled, but warm enough for the scents and finally the taste to be at their maximum. OK, if this is the right temperature, the best way to I get my wine to 55?
The perfect solution is to get a home wine chiller. They’re usually available anywhere where electronics are sold. Units vary in price but in a few cases can be as low as $100. A great investment for when you become a regular wine drinker.
Another solution to serving wine at the right temperature is to take your wine out of the key fridge and set it on the counter for approximately a half hour. The temperature will rise about 3-4 degrees every 10 minutes. The downside is that it’s incredible hard to take a look at the bottle that long without drinking it.
It’s kind of like going thru the drive thru, ordering fries and seeing them on the passenger seat and telling yourself that you’re going to wait until you get home until you eat them. It isn’t really possible.
If you realize that your wine is too cold, say in a cafe, use body heat to your benefit. Cup your hands around the bowl of the glass for two minutes and you should be OK.
Champagne on the other hand is an exception the white wine temperature range. It is intended to be server a bit less warm than “still” wine. I myself like my sparkling wines to be about 45 degrees. A different reason for that is the less warm the bottle, (to a point) the smaller the carbon-dioxide expands which actually make the bottle easier and safer to open.
I suspect the perfect temperature for red is about 64 or 65 degrees. Heresy you assert! What, I assumed reds were meant to be a room temperature. Well, perhaps. It really relies upon what you standard of room temperature is. If you remember back about a hundred years when wine was dominated by the French, the standard trend-setter was some type of royal who lived in a big castle with 2 foot thick stone walls.
Think of the times you have walked thru buildings like that. They’re actually cold. Room temperature two hundred years ago and before central heating was likely in the low to mid 60′s. Not the 72 most folks think of today. So through the years, people recollected the room temperature part, but forgot that room temperature is different from era to era.
So that the result’s that today, we drink our reds at our room temperature, not in the low to mid sixties. About 10-15 minutes in the fridge or about 5-10 in the refrigerator should do the job
If you like your wine at 72, by all possible means drink it at 72. But I would also encourage you to try your wine with a slight chill and see which 1 that you like best. Remember, drink what you like and how you’re keen on it. The wine serving temperature is down to you.
Mark is a professional winemaker, former winery owner, writer and frequent speaker on wine. He now helps folk learn about wine by teaching wine classes all though the US.
