Drinking Wine Temperature?

What temperature do you prefer to drink wine?

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flyinglentris

flyinglentris

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Just out of curiosity, what temperature do you prefer to drink wine? Do you like some wine types room temperature, while others, chilled?

I, for example, prefer all my drinking wine chilled. But I can drink it warm, on occasion.
 
TastyReuben said:
It depends on the wine.
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I agree as well. I drink wine quite seldom but I prefer whites and rosés chilled, sparkling very cold and reds and sweet wines room temp or slightly chilled (depending on the wine). Most restaurants serve their wines appropriately; at home we tend to keep reds and dessert wines in room temperature, whites in the fridge and sparkling wines in the '0°C/32°F' compartment next to the freezer (as we don't have a wine cabinet and we seldom use our tiny basement storage closet which stinks like rotten apples).
 
Whites, rosés, sparkling and white fortified wines (Pineau, Port etc.) are all best served chilled (in my opinion!). In the UK red tends to be served at room temperature, though I prefer it very slightly chilled.

Interestingly when we were doing a tasting at a vineyard in Châteauneuf-du-Pape last year, the lady running the tasting explained that (according to them) red wine should be served at "cellar" temperature. When it hits the glass it'll increase a degree or two to the perfect drinking temperature which is just below modern room temperature. She made the point that when the concept of drinking red wine at "room temperature" became popular there was no such thing as central heating, so room temperature back then was a few degrees cooler than the ~20°C that is the norm these days.

We had a second learning experience on that holiday - this time in the tasting room of an Alsatian wine co-operative. They had a demi-sec sparkling called "Ice" which they served over crushed ice. Neither of us are normally particularly fond of demi-secs, but this was refreshing and very enjoyable. It was also the first time I've seen French people serve wine over ice....normally that's a big no-no.
 
We like sweet wines chilled and dry wines more at room temperature, though I follow the old advice that says anything chilled, take out of the fridge 20 minutes ahead of time, and anything room temperature, put it in the fridge 20 minutes ahead of time.

Also, I nearly always pour a bottle of wine into a big plastic one liter stein (we have tons of those) and then pour it into another one, back and forth, about 15 times, to properly aerate it. Some restaurants will blitz it in a blender for a seconds to achieve the same thing.
 
mjd said:
Agree with TastyReuben. I usually like red wine chilled and white at room temperature but it depends on the wine and the meal.
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Ummmm, It is actually the opposite. As a general rule, white wines should be chilled to at least 50°, red wines are generally served at room temperature. There are variations on that, but that is the general rule.
 
I’m not a big wine drinker, or by any means an expert. But my dad was. He had a special wine fridge just for white wines, which is what he prefered. He kept it at about 45° to 50°. I have always preferred white wines, too. But, he never chilled his red wines. My sister prefers red wines, so he always kept some around for her, and it was never chilled.
 
Very interesting responses. It would seem that there is some disagreement.

I did a google and found a wine temperature serving chart.

Kendall-Jackson, one of my favorite wineries, here in the US agrees with this chart to a degree.

Kendall-Jackson Wine Temperature Article


It would appear that all wines should be served below room temperature, which I would say is about 70F.
 
It depends on the wine and also what sort of temperature the weather is at. We keep wine in the kitchen, where there is no heating, so even if we've got the central heating going on a cold day, it's cold in the kitchen. On a (rare) warm sunny day, we'd certainly put a bottle of white in the fridge for a while. In winter, probably not.

Similar rules apply to beer - in summer, we tend to put beer in the fridge for a short while. Different styles of beer are better at different temperatures. I do not subscribe to the barmy idea that beer must be freezing cold. It certainly shouldn't be.
 
Duck59 said:
It depends on the wine and also what sort of temperature the weather is at. We keep wine in the kitchen, where there is no heating, so even if we've got the central heating going on a cold day, it's cold in the kitchen. On a (rare) warm sunny day, we'd certainly put a bottle of white in the fridge for a while. In winter, probably not.

Similar rules apply to beer - in summer, we tend to put beer in the fridge for a short while. Different styles of beer are better at different temperatures. I do not subscribe to the barmy idea that beer must be freezing cold. It certainly shouldn't be.
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Once I had the unpleasant experience to drink a warm beer. It was like drink the worst tea on earth.
 
MypinchofItaly said:
Once I had the unpleasant experience to drink a warm beer. It was like drink the worst tea on earth.
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I should stress that I wasn't suggesting one should drink warm beer, just that drinking it freezing cold removes all the taste from it (assuming there was any taste to begin with - that's why many bland lagers are served so cold). Lagers should be around 6 to 9 Celsius, ales at 7 to 11 (the paler the ale, the slightly cooler, usually) and stouts and porters at about 13. I wouldn't want something much above that mark.
 
Duck59 said:
I should stress that I wasn't suggesting one should drink warm beer, just that drinking it freezing cold removes all the taste from it (assuming there was any taste to begin with - that's why many bland lagers are served so cold). Lagers should be around 6 to 9 Celsius, ales at 7 to 11 (the paler the ale, the slightly cooler, usually) and stouts and porters at about 13. I wouldn't want something much above that mark.
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Yep I know you weren’t suggesting to drink a warm beer and I agree with you about not drinking freeze beer because this would remove all the taste; I was just saying that once on a beach in Sardinia (42/43 c) I had that unpleasant experience with the only thing left to drink, but because of the strong heat and a problem with their refrigerators (what an annoying combo) the beer (Ichnusa beer) was sadly warm.
 
Historically all beer was consumed warm. Today, light or pale beers are better served cold. The thicker and darker a beer is, helps determine whether it is better served warm. One must also consider the fermentation method, top or bottom fermentation. All light/pale lager beers are top fermented. The other classification of beers, the ales, are more bottom fermented, where they are drawn from where the heavy ingredients and the yeasts collect due to gravity.
 
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