The
Right Temperature for Tasting Wine
Australians
tend to drink white wines cold (around 4-8 degrees C) and red wines
“at room temperature.” Room temperature varies enormously – from
about 17 degrees C in winter to often nearly 28 degrees in the
summer.
It is often
said that Australians drink their white wines too cold. Indeed,
winemakers, when tasting wines in the winery, always taste their
whites around 15 degrees C.
The warmer a
wine is, the more volatile compounds and aromas it will give off.
This is because the higher the temperature, the greater the
molecular activity is on the surface of a liquid. Thus, up to a
point, the warmer a wine is, the more flavour compounds you will be
able to detect. Up to a point, that is, because at around 24
degrees C, wine starts to turn acetic and starts to break down.
The ideal
temperature for drinking a white wine or a red wine is between 15
degrees and 18 degrees C.
Chilling
Whites
In
Australia, it is the custom to chill all white wines. This is
partly to do with the summer heat experienced in this country and
partly to do with the old custom of chilling aperitifs. Whether or
not all white wines are suited to chilling is debateable. The more
full bodied a wine is, the warmer it needs to be before the esters
and aldehydes vaporize and such molecules yield the flavours of the
wine. Conversely, the lighter a wine is, the more easily this will
happen. This means that full-bodied Margaret River chardonnays and
South Australian Viogners, for example, are not well served by being
too chilled.
An Exercise: Chilling Wines
Take two half glasses of white
wine and two half glasses of red wine. Cover each glass in cling
wrap. Put one white wine glass and one red wine glass in the
refrigerator and let them cool. Keep the other two glasses at room
temperature.
After six hours, take the glasses
out of the refrigerator and compare them with the two room
temperature glasses. Notice how much more aroma you get from the
two room temperature examples. See how much more flavour you get
from the room temperature glasses.
Next time you drink a chilled
white, ask yourself what benefits you get from the wine being
chilled. When wine and food combine in your mouth, the temperature
of the wine rapidly increases to body temperature in about ten
seconds. So ask yourself, do you chill the wine because you prefer
the refreshment of a cool drink, or do you do it out of habit?
Often you
will see winemakers drinking a chilled white wine by holding the
glass between cupped hands and warming the wine before drinking it.
This is because winemakers have no inhibitions at all about drinking
whites warm – in fact they prefer it when analyzing wines.
There is a
reason that red wines are consumed at room temperature. Heat
decreases the mouth’s sensitivity to tannin and acidity. So a
tannic red wine will taste tough if it is served cool.
How Fast a
Wine Heats Up
A white wine
(or a red wine served cool) will heat up at approximately 1 degree C
every three minutes until it reaches the ambient temperature.
How to Cool
a Wine Down
A bottle
chilled in a mixture of ice and water chills faster than a bottle in
ice alone. The reason is that ice alone has limited contact with
the surface of the bottle. Ice and water, on the other hand, covers
the surface of the bottle and is thus more efficient in cooling the
wine.
Domestic Refrigerators
Most domestic refrigerators
maintain their internal environment at about 4ºC, which is far too
cold for most white wines. Champagne and dry white wines of quality
are best served at a temperature between 8ºC and 10ºC (sometimes
even a little higher), so just a bare hour in the fridge door will
do fine here. Inexpensive white wines, cheaper sparkling wines and
sweet white wines are best a little colder, perhaps 4ºC to 8ºC, so
two hours or so should bring these bottles down to a reasonable
temperature.
Red wines often also need a
little chilling. The 'room temperature' which many regard as the
ideal serving temperature for red wines is not an excuse to leave
wines languishing in the warmth of the Australian summer or in
today's insulated, centrally heated houses. The ideal serving
temperature for many fine red wines is perhaps 14ºC to 18ºC,
somewhat cooler than modern houses, although this was a common
temperature indoors in centuries gone by! Many reds, unless stored
somewhere cool, will benefit from half an hour in the refrigerator.
This is particularly the case for Beaujolais and young Burgundy, as
well as Pinot Noir from the New World. Good claret, Rhônes and other
reds from warmer climes are generally fine at 18ºC.
When bringing the wine to the
correct temperature, its obviously important not to damage the wine.
Gentle cooling in the fridge is best, and cooling in a bucket of
water and ice is also safe, and more rapid. It will have the effect
of bringing the wine down to 0ºC, which is far too cold to
appreciate the wine, so you will need to remove the bottle before it
gets this far. If trying to warm a bottle which is too cold, there
is a more significant risk of damaging the wine. Warm the wine
gently, preferably by planning ahead and bringing the wine from its
cool storage area, be it wine cellar or fridge, several hours in
advance. Many are tempted to try and accelerate the process by
placing the wine near radiators or other sources of heat. This is a
sure fire recipe for disaster, with the end result likely to be a
stewed, soupy, cooked flavour in the wine.
If uncertain about serving
temperature, always err on the side of caution and serve the wine a
little too cold. A wine served in the way will soon warm up in the
glass, probably releasing a sequence of pleasing aromas as it does
so. If very cold, cupping the hand around the body of the glass will
encourage the wine to warm. There is no easy way, however, of
cooling a wine served too warm. |
