What are the best temperatures to serve various wines at? What temperatures are too cold or too warm for serving various wines? Generally speaking, in the U.S., it seems that white wines are served too cold and red wines are served too warm. A wine storage temperature of 40 °F or below (typical temperatures maintained by kitchen refrigerators) is too cold for white wines. This cold of a temperature stifles the wine’s flavor and aroma. Red wine served at room temperatures, which typically means between 74 and 78 °F also degrade a wine’s taste and texture. Many people have heard that red wines should be served at room temperature. However, this conventional wine wisdom really refers to a wine cellar’s room temperature which is widely agreed to mean 55 °F, the ideal long term wine storage temperature.

Upon bottle opening and after a period of time, white wines that are too cold will eventually self correct and warm up. However, red wines that are too warm will likely not cool down on their own. A general range to use for proper wine serving temperatures is below:

Serving Temperature	Wines
45 to 50 °F	Most white wines including Chardonnays, Chenin Blancs, Rieslings, and Sauvignon Blancs.
50 to 55 °	Full bodied white wines including Sauternes, Viognier, Rose wine and light red wines like Beaujolais.
60 to 65 °F	Red wines including Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Syrah/Shiraz, and Zinfandel.

More specific wine serving temperatures are covered in this winecellarscoolers.com article.

A wine cooler, also referred to as a wine refrigerator, allows storage of wine for longer periods of time and can be used to serve wine at their appropriate serving temperatures. The basic functions of a wine cooler are maintaining a constant wine appropriate temperature and humidity while minimizing sunlight and other direct light or heat.

Published 9/4/2009 12:00:00 AM

Tags: Temperature