At what temp do you chill red wine?

Answer 1

Wine geeks have a reputation for being fussy and pedantic. Visit a wine discussion forum on the internet and you may well find the participants agonizing over the temperature control on their wine cabinets and cellars -- should it be 55°F, or is that just a little too cold? Perhaps 60°F? No that's too hot, so maybe 58°F is better. But how do I know how accurate my temperature control really is?

Scientific research has shown that tatse buds function differently with changing temperature. For example, the perception of sweetness in a solution is strongly affected by the temperature of that solution. (It tastes sweeter as it warms up.) But we don't need hard data to convince us of this. Try the following experiment. Take an inexpensive oaked Australian Chardonnay and pour it into two half bottles. Leave one of these at room temperature, and chill the other down to fridge temperature. Then taste the two wines. The wine at room temperature may well taste a bit flabby, sweet and confected, but the chilled bottle is likely to be much more savoury, leaner and with more 'structure'. Try the same experiment with a sweet wine, and you'll probably find that the wine at room temperature tastes sweeter and less focused than the chilled version.

The conclusion? Chilling white wines generally makes them taste less sweet and more savoury, and generally makes them taste 'less' overall. In fact the worst white wine I ever had, a papaya wine in Kenya which had a delicate bouquet of feline urine, was almost palatable when served ice cold. You had to drink it quick, though, before it had a chance to warm up. On the other hand, chill a fine Burgundy or Alsace white too much, and you'll miss what the wine has to offer.

With red wines, a similar thing happens, but here it has more to do with tannins than sweetness. Whereas white wines get their structure from their acidity, reds rely on a combination of acidity and the bitter group of compounds known as tannins for their substance. If you chill a red wine, this exaggerates the tannins, gives the wine more structure, and makes it less expressive on the nose. Conversely, as a red warms up, the tannins become less apparent and the wine becomes more volatile. While intuitively you'd think that it's therefore a good idea to warm reds up to make them more expressive on the nose, what actually happens is that as a red is overheated, the nose loses its focus: there's quite a narrow window of temperatures where a wine shows well, and it's not a good idea to stray outside this. One non-wine geek friend of mine has a dreadful habit of opening red wines a couple of hours early and sticking them on top of the oven. By the time the wine is poured, it's lukewarm; almost undrinkably so. Don't do it!

Our home has an ageing central heating system, and on a cold winter's evening, I often find red wines at room temperature are just too cold to be enjoyable. They are muted on the nose and sternly structured. In the summer, however, I'll often pop reds in the fridge for 20 minutes before opening them, as at a room temperature of 25°C-plus they can be unfocused and blowsy. And some light reds, such as those from Beaujolais or the Loire, often benefit from being chilled right down much as you might do with a white wine.

So, you've probably gathered by now that I'm fully convinced that serving temperature has a startling effect on the taste of a wine. While you don't have to get it accurate within a fraction of a degree, it's worth paying attention to. In general, watch out for serving red wines too warm; it's much easier to warm a wine up in the glass than it is to cool it down again, so err on the side of too cool. And don't serve those reds too warm!

Answer 2

The most important factor in serving a wine is the temperature of the wine. Generally, white wines are served at cooler temperatures and red wines are served from cool to room temperature (remember room temperature refers to a room in winter with no heater), and Sparkling wines are served the coolest of all wines.
# The rich full body reds should be between 59° F and 68 ° F ... no higher (15° C - 20° C)
# The light red, usually outstanding in the summer, should be between 54° F and 57° F degrees. (12° C - 14° C)

Check this site, for the recomended temperature:
http://www.wine-storage.com/temp.html

Answer 3

In general, red wines are served at cooler room temperatures and white wines are best served chilled.

Optimal Wine Serving Temperatures :

White Wines: 45-50 °F or 7-10 °C

Red Wines: 50-65 °F or 10-18 °C

Rosé Wines: 45-55 °F or 7-13 °C

Sparkling Wines: 42-52 °F or 6-11 °C

Answer 4

Red wine: chill for 20 minutes before serving
White wine: remove from fridge 20 minutes before serving.

Chilling for 20 mins gets the red wine to the room temp of drafty 18th and 19th houses, when they made up the 'room temperature rule' for red wine.

Answer 5

I think, all flim-flam wine speak aside, that the key thing to remember here is that "Room Temperature" means what a house in France was at back in reniassance days. It should NEVER mean any temperature over 70. Any modern day human who is drinking wines at 70 or higher because it is their CURRENT room temperature in Miami or California or whatever is completely missing the point :)

What if you lived in Alaska and it was winter, and your room was 20F? Would you drink the wine at 20F because that was the temperature of your room? :) I should hope not.

I did a whole experiement with a group of friends which involved drinking wines at various temperatures - here are all of our notes -

http://www.wineintro.com/basics/temperature/

As far as a chart for serving wines - here you go -

http://www.wineintro.com/basics/temperatures.html

Most reds get served somewhere in the 60F range. This means, if it is currently 90F in your home because it's summertime, then yes you need to CHILL the wine to get it cooler. If you drink it at 90F it will taste like alcohol and not much else. The aim is to have the wine at a temperature where the alcoholy flavors are muted - but the actual "good" flavors of the wine (blackberry etc) aren't killed by the cold. If you drink a wine too cold, you lose the flavors of it.

Lisa Shea
http://www.WineIntro.com

Answer 6

When I went wine tasting, they recommended chilling to just below room temp - around 65 degrees F.

Answer 7

*Most* red wine is traditionally served at cellar temperature, or about 55F.

It's perfectly fine to chill it, in fact, lighter reds like beaujolais sometimes do much better chilled. It's all about what you like and what brings you the most enjoyment. Wine is supposed to be a happy thing, and that means NO RULES!

Try it chilled, try it cellared, try it in the microwave with cinnamon and spices if you like. Just find what works best for you and ignore the people who say you "can't", they're ignorant savages.
*smile*

Answer 8

Red wine loses a lot of taste and aroma, especially the fruiter notes when it is chilled, so if you don't really like the taste or smell of red wine (or if you are drinking very poor quality red wine), then chilling it should improve it. I like it just slightly cooler than room temperature, but not refrigerator cold. I like many red wines made with Shiraz and Franc grapes. Merlot might be one I like better cold, because it often smells of barn yard to my nose. -- Regards, John Popelish

Answer 9

Room temperature! Red wine is not supposed to be chilled.

Answer 10

You don't chill red wine... but you don't want it over cool room temp, either.