Winter is basically our excuse to drink copious amounts of red wine at festive occasions because, it’s cold outside and no one wants a cold drink.
Only, according to Sydney Wine Academy and Taylor Wines, we may be wrong in our assumption that all red wine should be warm. In fact, we’ve probably been drinking red wine at the wrong temperature all of our adult lives.
If you’re anything like us then you’re serving plans for red wine goes a little bit like this: take off the shelf, pour in a glass, drink. But this research suggests that room temperature is not the ideal conditions for a glass of red. In fact, Taylor Wines states that ‘the idea of drinking wine at room temperature or ‘Au chamber’ comes from the chilly drawing rooms of medieval French castles’.
Instead, we should be getting our reds to between 12 and 18 degrees before we start guzzling, in order for them to be at their peak.
Taylor Wines comments that when red wine is too warm the alcohol ‘dominates, and masks its subtle flavours’. While if you ‘chill a wine too far… the flavours are suppressed, the tannins become harsher and the acids too sharp’.
Which doesn’t sound yummy at all.
Full bodied wines can be served at the warmer end of the scale, while lighter reds such as a Pinot Noir should be kept cooler.
So, what can you do? If you really want to be specific about it, get a wine thermometer to make sure you’re chilling your wines to exactly the right temperature before drinking. (It makes a great Christmas present, too).
