14 hours ago
Ice in your beaujolais and merlot by the fire – our ultimate guide to wine temperatures
'I stand slightly aghast at the notion of warming red wine by the fire,' wrote reader Andrew Holgate on The Telegraph's letters page earlier this month.
Most wine pros will side with him. Winemakers, merchants, sommeliers and critics moan constantly that red wines are often served too warm and smell and taste 'soupy' as a result.
I'm not just talking about the likes of cabernet franc and gamay, light-bodied reds traditionally served cooler than their fuller-bodied counterparts, but all red wines, from claret to zinfandel.
Complaints about red wine being too cold? These are rare among wine pros, not least because unless you're drinking inside an igloo that red wine is going to warm up pretty darn fast in the glass.
It might sound finicky to think too hard about the serving temperature of a wine, especially if we're going to go so far as to put actual numbers on it, but stay with me, because serving temperature alters the flavour of a wine so much that changing its temperature can be equivalent to spending many pounds more (or less) on a bottle.
Do you need a thermometer to measure wine temperature?
Honestly, no. If you are nerdily precise and feel more comfortable operating accurately then by all means buy one. But bear in mind that optimal serving temperature is as much about personal taste and the characteristics of a specific wine as it is about general rules.
I have never used a wine thermometer in my life. Before opening a bottle, I take a guideline from where it's come from. My normal fridge stores bottles at about 5C; my wine fridge is set at 13C; the kitchen thermostat tells me the air temperature which ranges from 14 to 20C in winter, depending on how much I'm economising with the heating bill, and in summer goes wild.
These have helped me to peg temperatures to numbers. But, when judging whether or not a wine is too cold or too warm, I just use my nose, my mouth and my experience. You can do the same.
Here is a guide – and only a guide, not an instruction – to good wine serving temperatures.
