Tips for Serving Wine at Proper Temperatures

General rule of thumb: Serve red wines at room temperature. Serve white wines chilled.

A common mistake is to serve red wine at temperatures in excess of 70°F (the room temperature of many modern homes, instead of the room temperature of 18th century Europe). Full-bodied, high-quality white wines like Chardonnay tend to be served too cold. Over-chilling can be useful for masking imperfections in cheap wine, but it's a waste of good wine.

A red wine that is too warm will taste of alcohol instead of fruit, it may even taste bitter or vinegary. A white wine served too cold will taste more acidic, less fruity and sweet.

A bottle of wine will cool 4°F (2°C) for every ten minutes in the refrigerator, and depending on room temperature, will warm at about the same rate when removed from the refrigerator. Therefore, chilling Asti Spumante from 75°F (room temperature) to 40°F will take approximately 90 minutes or 1 1/2 hours. Chilling red Bordeaux from 75°F to 65°F will take 25 minutes.

A fast way to chill a bottle of wine is to immerse it in a mixture of ice and water. Chill white wine for 20 to 30 minutes, red wine 5 to 10 minutes, add rock salt if you want to cool it more rapidly. Avoid cooling wine in the freezer, you may forget it and end up with a slushy mess.

If this feels like guesswork, VinTemp makes an excellent line of wine accessories for measuring actual wine temperature (not ambient temperature), without opening the bottle. If you're a serious wine drinker, you may want to invest in a wine refrigerator or cooler with digital controls. These wine accessories allow you to store wine for up to a year at proper serving temperatures. The storage capacity can be as small as 4 bottles, or as large as 100+ bottles.

If you would rather avoid the mess of ice and water to quickly cool your wine, the Vacu Vin Rapid Ice line of wine accessories allows you to serve chilled white wines in 5 minutes. Store them in your freezer until ready to use, it keeps bottles cold for up to 3 hours.