What Is the Correct Temperature to Serve Wine?

The following guidelines will ensure that you enjoy your wine to the fullest.

Sparkling: 5°C – 7°C

Whites: 7°C – 10°C

Reds: rosés and light reds 10°C – 12,5°C

Reds: medium bodied 12.5°C – 15,5°C

Reds: full-bodied 15°C- 18°C

Ice in cold water will chill the wine effectively and will keep it cold. Over-chilling wines kill the flavour and aroma. Too much warmth makes the wine taste bland. When it’s hot, it’s not a bad idea to chill a red wine by leaving it in the fridge for 20 minutes before opening.

What Is the Best Way to Store Wine?

Your main goal should be to store your wine in a dark and dry place to preserve its great taste. If you can’t keep it entirely away from light, store it inside a box or wrap it in a cloth. If you choose a cabinet for storing your wine, make sure it has solid or UV-resistant doors.

Can I store wine upright?

Don’t store your bottle of wine upright for a long-term period. When your bottle is upright, the wine isn’t touching the cork. This results in the cork drying out, leaving you with a wine that’s musty and smells bad.

Once you have chilled wine, do you need to keep it chilled?

A chilled wine can go from the refrigerator to the table and back again without suffering any negative effects on the quality of the wine. It is a common misconception that a gradual temperature change will damage a wine. While it is true that wine does not like heat, it’s only when those temps are excessively warm or rapid that any wine would suffer adversely. Think of a wine left inside an unairconditioned car. A wine exposed to temperatures approaching 40°C for any considerable time would most likely be compromised.

Here is a practical scenario to back my assertion: Many wine lovers, myself included own wine fridges or cellaring units to age their wines. The optimal cellaring temperature is 12°C for all wines, both red and white. Before a dinner party with friends, I might select a few red wines from my cellaring unit and leave them on the table to gradually come up to proper room temperature for drinking. Should a bottle happen to not be opened for some reason, I would not have any reservations about returning it to my wine fridge to resume cellaring and be enjoyed at a future date.

Why do some wines give me a headache?

The first major cause of wine-related headaches is tannins. Tannins are naturally occurring preservative compounds found in the seeds, stems and skins of grapes. They provide flavour and texture to big red wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Barolo. To see if you are susceptible to tannin headaches, try brewing a cup of black tea and let the tea steep for five to ten minutes. Since black tea is very high in tannins, this will help to identify whether or not you have tannin sensitivity. If you believe tannins are the culprit of your headaches, avoid high-tannin wines.

The second cause of the dreaded wine headache is sugar. When you drink alcohol, your body will essentially convert it to sugar to digest it. This process takes lots and lots of water to achieve. If you have not had enough water throughout the day, your body will pull it from other parts of your body (like your head!), resulting in an unpleasant headache. Sweeter wines like Riesling, Moscato or any wines labelled as semi-dry should be avoided if you think sugar is the problem.

The third and most important contributor to wine headaches is histamines. Think of the symptoms of allergies: runny nose, dry eyes and of course headaches. As it turns out, foods and drinks that have been aged can cause our bodies to release histamines. Often a big, rich Cabernet Sauvignon can cause your nose to get stuffy almost immediately. A simple remedy for histamine headaches is to take a mild histamine blocker before you indulge in a glass (or three) of bold red wine.

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What does “vintage” mean?

Vintage, with regards to wine, does not mean ‘old’. Vintage is merely referring to the year the grapes were harvested – all the grapes in a vintage wine were all or mostly grown and harvested in the same year. On the other hand, a wine that is not vintage would be a blend of harvests from several different years.

Do all wines get better with age?

This is one of the most asked questions about wine. As any wine goes through the ageing process, it triggers a complex chemical reaction among the acids, sugars, and substances known as phenolic compounds. These phenolic compounds can not only alter the taste (usually for the better, but not always) but the aroma and colouring as well. Higher phenol levels in wine (certain types of Syrah) mean that it will age well. Lower phenol-level wine will typically not age very well. A wine that ages extraordinarily, or those that are ‘built to age’, is incredibly rare.

What are sulfites? What is bad about them? Where do they come from? Are they additives?

Sulfites are natural chemicals found in both red and white grape skins that are suspected to cause headaches. Sulfur, a natural bacteria-fighter, frequently gets blamed for causing everything from chronic fatigue syndrome to headaches. The FDA estimates that only 3% of people exhibit a true sensitivity to sulfites. And headaches don’t equal “allergic” to sulfites. Those who are sulfite-sensitive experience difficulty breathing and break out in hives when exposed. White wine contains almost twice the amount of sulfites than red, so if you’re getting headaches with only red wine, you’re probably sensitive to the higher histamines or tannins instead.

Sulfites are also found in sulphur dioxide, the chemical added to crushed grapes to prevent premature fermentation and bacteria growth. It has been suggested that cheaper wines are likely to have more sulfites to substitute for careful grape selection and winemaking.

What makes red wine red? A rosé wine pink? A white wine white?

Red wine starts with red grape varieties, and then it is fermented with both the skins and seeds (occasionally its stems) that develop its deep red colour. White wine starts with white grapes and is fermented after the skins, stems and seeds have been removed, leaving only the white juice to ferment. Rosé wine starts with red grapes and is fermented in the white wine fashion, but attains its colour during the crushing and pressing stages.

How do you know if wine is “bad” or just too young?

When a wine has the distinct taste of cork, mold, vinegar or sulfur, the answer will be obvious. The wine that is too young will taste bitter, pucker your mouth, dry out your tongue or be too tart.

What does it mean when a wine is dry?

The wine is dry when it’s not sweet. It leaves a dusty feeling on the tip of your tongue. Some people like that taste. Sweet wine is not necessarily a bad wine and vice versa, each wine has a different expression and can serve an ideal experience and/or pairing purpose.

What is basic wine tasting etiquette?
Corks

Corks are not presented to be smelled, but to be inspected for their condition. A cork that is too moist, or even moldy, is a sign of bad stocking, and a cork that is too dry is a signal that the wine was stored upright rather than laid down and could mean air got into the bottle (and the wine could be oxidized).

Wine Glasses

Wine glasses have different shapes for a reason. Red wine glasses have wider mouths to facilitate swirling and allow the wine to breathe and develop flavour. White wine glasses have smaller, narrowing mouths that help concentrate the smell of the wine. Champagne glasses should be tall and narrow so that the bubbles will remain in the liquid.

Rejecting Bottles

Sending back a wine bottle in a restaurant is a source of mystery and anxiety for most people. There are several valid reasons to send back a bottle of wine. The wine could be “corked,” or smell of sulfur. It doesn’t take a lot of wine experience to detect them — they are strong, distasteful flavours that are painfully obvious. Once detected, there is no reason why you should have to pay for a bottle of wine that has gone bad.

Rejecting Bottles

Sending back a wine bottle in a restaurant is a source of mystery and anxiety for most people. There are several valid reasons to send back a bottle of wine. The wine could be “corked,” or smell of sulfur. It doesn’t take a lot of wine experience to detect them — they are strong, distasteful flavours that are painfully obvious. Once detected, there is no reason why you should have to pay for a bottle of wine that has gone bad.

Breathing

Breathing is the practice of allowing the wine to come in contact with air before consumption. It is usually a practice reserved for red wines, and most people believe the majority of wines do improve with breathing. However, the long-standing practice of removing the cork to let the wine breathe is really useless, as it allows very little air to enter. Have the server pour some wine into your glass and allow it to breathe for a few minutes.

Why decant the wine?

Decanting — the act of transferring a wine from its bottle to another vessel — exists for two reasons. One is to introduce oxygen to tame monster tannins. It doesn’t actually change the tannin level, just our perception of it. The air alters the wine’s chemical makeup, molding it into an easier-to-drink beverage. It’ll take an hour or two before the fruit will tell you it’s ready to drink. Wines that benefit include cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel, big Spanish (Rioja, Ribera del Duero), as well as Italian reds (Barolo, Brunello), Syrah and well-made merlots. Young, robust pinot noirs improve with a few sucks of air, but mostly you can leave them alone. And softer, delicate pinots, Chianti and lighter-bodied reds. The second is to separate a wine from its sediment that develops during ageing. In general, only red wines need to be decanted.

Which food goes with which wines?

Quite a subjective question, but often asked. In recent years, the entire subject of wine and food matching has been revised. Sometimes, people choose a meal according to what wine they will drink. For years past, there were stringent social rules concerning the proper etiquette of serving red wine with red meats and white wine with chicken and fish. Now, the matching comes through what you like to drink, what sauce is served with the meat, and how the dish is cooked. A good rule is that the stronger the flavours in the dish, the stronger the wine should be.                                                                                                                                     However, chemically, there are some reasons you might want to choose certain wines for certain foods. Avoid drinking wine with any dish containing vinegar: it destroys any flavour a wine might have to offer. Citrus fruits follow the same rule unless you choose a tart sauvignon blanc. The acids in white wine enhance the flavour of fish, whereas red wine reacts disastrously with fish oil and can leave a metallic taste in your mouth. The tannins of strong red wines like cabernets are best matched with protein-rich meats because their flavour could overwhelm any lesser dish, and the tannins are also softened by the meat’s protein and fat.