Serving Temperatures

While on a phone call to about my up coming cruise I got to talking to one of the cruise line’s sommeliers. The topic of wine temps came up. When asked about the wine temps for red and white this is the response I got… ‘Service temperatures are vital to wine appreciation and enjoyment’!

The Sommelier said they generally serve their light simple inexpensive wines at 8 degrees C to 13 degrees C, most between 10 and 13 degrees C and fine full bodied white wines between 14-16 degrees C.

The better the quality of the wine ,the warmer it can be. The poorer quality       the wine the more it gains by cooling. So the majority of white wines should be chilled- and not served ice cold.

The average fridge temp is approx. 5C so white wine should reach the proper serving temp in about 2-3 hours. It is better to over do it then to under do it since wine will heat to room temperature very quickly.

Something to keep in mind when cooling your wine- in an ice bucket it will cool down 1 degrees F per minute. In the fridge on the other hand it will take about 7-8 minutes to achieve a drop of 1 degree F. So if you’re caught short it’s faster in an ice bucket.

So for simplicity sake the easiest way to serve your wine at the proper temperature is to:

RED WINE:

Place in the fridge for for 1/2 hour before serving.

WHITE WINE:

Can stay in the fridge but remove it 1/2 hour before you serve it.

Cheers/Salut 
Karen (Wine Sense- Brandon)

Filed under: General by WineSense