Wine Too Hot or Too Cold?
Wine temperature and a recap of Beyond the Grape & The American Wine Society’s tastings.
Several of my wine friends recently returned from trips to Italy. Most were on separate trips and all of them sounded like they had a great time. One was recounting their journey through Tuscany and brought up the temperature of some red wine that they were served…and how cold it was. “Is that normal?”
No. 9.9 times out of 10 I get that question posed in the opposite way: “How cold should [that] wine be?”
“Red wines should be room temperature, right?”
I have preached the Sermon of Wine Temperature from my swirling pulpit for quite a while; Almost all red wines should served between 65-68 degrees Fahrenheit (18-20 Celsius). That “Room temperature” is the temperature of a bottle coming out of a wine cellar. Most wine cellars are around 60 degrees. The bottle is brought out and opened, allowing for some aeration as the temperature raises to around 65 degrees or so. Then the wine is poured into a glass that is close to the temperature of the room you are actually in, probably around 75 degrees, or even higher if you have been holding that glass for a while. Hopefully you see where this is going.
We, especially along the Gulf Coast, have a chronic problem of serving red while too hot! When red wine is poured into your glass then the glass should feel cool to the touch, not cold, with NO condensation. If the outside of your glass starts to condense with water, then your wine is too cold! White wine SHOULD cause your glass to form condensation, assuming you are in a similar climate to that on the Gulf Coast.
It is okay to put your bottle of red wine in the fridge. Assuming your bottle of red is around 75 degrees you can put it in for a short time, 30 or so minutes, opened, and it will be ready to drink almost immediately upon exit. Or, if you leave the bottle of red in for longer, with your whites, then it will just take longer outside of the fridge to be ready. Wine is served wrong either because of ignorance, laziness, or a combination of both. Don’t let that describe you.
I had the chance to go to two of our local wine events this past week: a tasting at Beyond the Grape that was supporting the Pensacola Opera, and the monthly tasting of our local chapter of the American Wine Society. Beyond the Grape featured a fun full tour of Italy with some fantastic charcuterie boards and the AWS chapter taught a class on Spain, followed by an awesome Paella! The Crowd Favorite at Beyond the Grape was a fascinating Cabernet Franc from Umbria (Paolo e Noemia d’Amico Atlante), and there was a Wine of Note at the AWS tasting, Pazo La Moreira Albariño.
Other than the white wines, ALL of the red wines, at both events, were served too hot! There are very few rules in Wine…but; Rule #1, don’t serve hot wine! Temperature matters. Wine served at the wrong temperature makes it taste worse no matter how good that wine was supposed to be, and life is too short to waste it on bad wine.
East Hill Bottle Shop 7 Dec 2022
Two Unique whites tie for the evening’s Wine of Note.
With only a few more wine tastings before the Holidays, our local wine shops are pulling out some good ones to try. We had another tie for our highest classification here at GCW, a Wine of Note, and both were white!A Pinot Blanc by Pierre Sparr from Alsace France, and Fontaleoni Vernaccia di San Gimignano, from Tuscany Italy. Both unique, both liked by the tasters, and both good for different palettes. The Pinot Blanc had lots of peach and nectarine (stone fruit in wine talk), not sweet, balanced minerality and mild acidity made it very easy to drink. Pair with any chicken or white fish, or just drink. The Fontaleoni is made from Vernaccia, a native Italian hill country grape that doesn’t make it out on our tasting scene that often. It is higher in acid, making it more crisp and lively with notes of dry apple. Definitely a food wine. A good match for any Italian meal with Alfredo sauce.
The Bottle Shop on Baylen, 23 Sept
Finishing the week downtown at a wine tasting with friends is hard to beat.
As the heat of the Gulf Coast Summer refuses to relent, it's still hard to beat enjoying wine outside with friends. As long as that wine is served at the correct temperature! No worries, this evening, it was. The Wine of Note for this evening is what I call a wine wine. A wine that many people order at restaurants just based on the area because the name is so synonymous with good wine that it has to be good. That wine is a Chianti. A Chianti is from Chianti, it is not the grape, of which I heard several people say. Like France, Italy names it’s wine based on where it is from. Then, usually, secondary words tell us more. In this case, Tenuta di Arceno (the name of the family and town) Chianti Classico 2019. Classico is the key, legal, term here. Chianti Classico must be made from 100% Sangiovese grapes, and is controlled by regional quality regulations. Therefore it is a good bet that this Italian wine will do well with your carbonara. In addition to the standard 10 wines, there were four mystery wines, that long time tasters bring to test your tongue. Definitely a good time.