Does serving temperature of your wine matter?
by Jess Ruciack
What’s the best temperature to serve my wine? Does it matter if it’s a really hot day and I’ve just grabbed a bottle of Shiraz off my wine rack? Should I be drinking my Riesling icy cold?
These, and many more variations, are questions we get asked a lot in Cellar Door, especially over the summer. And fair enough – everyone wants to know how best to serve the wine they’ve bought. At home you want to be able to experience the wine as you did at Cellar Door. Or if you’ve not tasted it before, you want to experience the wine as the winemaker intended.
Serving temperature is a bit like cellaring wine, in that each individual has their preferences. But in Australia, we often serve whites too cold and reds too hot.
There are some common themes that we can use – so we hope they help you!
WHITE WINE SERVING TEMPERATURE
To show their best, white wines generally should be served chilled. But chilled doesn’t mean icy. If served too cold, a white wine can have it’s aromas and flavours muted, and the acidity may seem sharper.
Most of us would put a bottle of white wine in the fridge so we can just grab it when we need it. This is fine, but our house fridges are generally 3-4°C, and this is too cold for most whites to show their best. So in this case, grab your bottle out the fridge about 30 minutes before you will be serving it so it can warm up a little. If you’ve had unexpected visitors and your white is at room temperature, the quickest way to cool it down is in an ice bucket/tub with a cold water and ice mix (rather than just ice). This may still take half an hour. Sometimes I put mine in the freezer if I’ve got a little longer up my sleeve (don’t forget about it though!)
Some guides for different varieties:
6-8ºC – – Sparkling, Golden Semillon (and dessert wines in general)
8-10ºC – – Riesling, Chardonnay (unoaked – E Series), Rosé
10-12ºC – – Chardonnay (oaked – Eden Valley)
BEST TEMPERATURE TO SERVE RED WINE
I think most of us would always remember being told that reds should be served at room temperature. But when we think about it a bit more, ‘room temperature’ at a summer bbq could be 32ºC, and even inside is likely to be around 22ºC even with the aircon on. The old ‘room temperature’ myth is believed to stem from ye olde times in France, where room temperature would be much closer to mid-teens. If we all had a wine cave then we could pull the wine straight off the shelf and be ready to pour. But in our current lives we may need to consider the temperature before serving our red wines. You might need to pop your red into the fridge or ice bucket for a short time, or if you’ve got a wine fridge that is set for cellaring at a certain temperature, you might even need to let it warm up slightly before serving.
If a red wine is too warm, then it can accentuate the alcohol and make the wine look ‘flabby’ by hiding all the lovely fruit characters. If a red is too chilled then tannins can be very astringent and aromas will be muted.
A guide for red wine serving temperature:
12-14ºC – – lighter reds, can include our GSM and Western Ridge Grenache Carignan which can be slightly more chilled due to the lower tannins
(also includes Pinot Noir – but remember friends don’t let friends drink Pinot!)
15-18ºC – – full-bodied reds – Shiraz, Cabernet, Merlot
FIND WHAT WORKS FOR YOU
I always like to say, it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks, as long as it works for you (especially when it comes to wine!) So experiment a little with your favourite wines and find your perfect serving temperature. And this may change depending on the weather, what you’re eating, whether you had a beer already etc. We just want you to enjoy your wine!
