MythBusters: The Best Temperature for Red and White Wine

Ep 144

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• Bon Chocolats: Go to www.bonchocolats.com and use code CORKANDFIZZ10 for 10% off your order!
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The outdated rules of drinking red wine at room temperature and white wine straight out of the fridge may sound correct, but they’re not doing your wine any favors.

In this episode of my wine mythbusters series, the serving temperature myth gets put to the test! I start with where these rules even came from and why they no longer make sense in modern homes. What used to work centuries ago does not line up with how we heat, cool, and store wine today.

You’ll learn how temperature directly impacts aroma, flavor, tannins, and alcohol, and why most wines actually taste better somewhere in the middle of room and fridge temp. I’m also sharing some simple, realistic tips for fixing wine that is too warm or too cold, whether you are at home or sitting in a restaurant.

At the end of the day, there are guidelines worth knowing, but this episode is also about learning how you like to drink wine and paying attention to what actually tastes good in your glass.

Episode Highlights:

• Where the room temperature myth came from
• Why red wine is usually served too warm
• Why white wine is often served too cold
• How temperature changes aroma and flavor
• What heat does to tannins and alcohol
• Simple fixes at home and in restaurants
• How wine body affects serving temperature
• Why personal preference still matters

Transcript

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Ever forget where you got a bottle of wine or why it mattered? One of today's sponsors, Pour Memory, helps you capture the stories, people and moments behind every bottle. Jot notes on their labels, track them in the journal, or use their app. Check it out@porrmemory.com and make every bottle unforgettable. Interested in learning about wine but not sure where to start? You're in the right place. Welcome to the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. I'm your host, Hailey Bohlman, and I'm so glad you're here. I'm a wine enthusiast turned wine educator and founder of the Seattle based wine tasting business Cork and Fizz. It is my goal to build your confidence in wine by making it approachable and lots of fun. You can expect to learn everything from how to describe your favorite wine to what to pair with dinner tonight and so much more. Whether you're a casual wine sipper or. A total cork dork like myself, this podcast is for you. So grab yourself a glass and let's dive in. Hello and welcome back to the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine Podcast. And welcome to my second episode of the MythBusters miniseries where I debunk wine myths new and old and give you the straight facts. Okay. Plus a couple of my own opinions. But this is my podcast. After all, today's myth is that red wine should always be served at room temperature. And as a little bonus, we'll also talk about the myth that white wines should be served straight out of the fridge. As a reminder, you might find these episodes are a little shorter than normal. But if you're missing hearing my voice and you want to learn more about wine, check out my backlog of over 140 episodes of this podcast. All right, so our red wine should always be served at room temperature and white wine should be served straight out of the fridge. You know me, my first question is always why? Why do we think this, like, what caused us to, like, want to have our white wine straight from the fridge and our red wine at, you know, 70 degrees from sitting on our kitchen counter? So from what I can tell, when it comes to the red wine before central heating, room temperature in wine producing regions was closer to the ideal serving temperature for red wine. So they were not setting their thermostats to 68, 70 degrees Fahrenheit. It was cooler. They did not have central heating. They had a fireplace somewhere that would probably heat up the house, but they did not have, you know, central heating everywhere. So room temperature might have actually meant the Ideal serving temperature. This also could be considered the cellar temperature because you would drink the wine straight from the cellar, which, again, would have a much cooler temperature than we're used to having in our houses. As for whites, drinking them straight from the fridge simply seems to come from the fact that when refrigeration was invented, they could drink them straight out of the fridge, like many whites did, taste better with a chill. But it was also just considered a luxury to have the fridge and be able to have your wines at that cold temperature. And so I think we just kind of caught onto that, and then it just became, you know, known that it was like, okay, you put your white wine in the fridge, and then you leave your red wine out on the counter. And that was just how we started drinking the wine. So now onto the facts. The problem is that room temperature is too warm now for reds, unless you are able to keep your house at a nice, chilly 60. I don't know, 60 degrees Fahrenheit. And straight out of the fridge is too cold. For most white wines, both red and white would actually be better enjoyed right in between those two temperatures, between room temperature and straight out of the fridge. Why is this right? If white wine is too cold, you lose the nuance of flavor, and it ends up tasting kind of sour and bitter. You know, all the aromas will be muted, and it makes it really basically nearly impossible to distinguish any particular smells. You'll notice, actually, at a lot of tastings, they might serve the wine slightly warmer than you would typically enjoy it, especially the white wines. And that's because they want you to be able to pick out certain aromas from the wine that might be more muted if we had it at a cooler temperature. On the other hand, if red wine is too warm, or, honestly, if white wine is too warm, these apply to both of these. I'm just saying it, as in, like, we generally drink red wine too warm and white wine too cold. So. But if any wine is too warm, it will taste flat. For reds in particular, the tannins will soften to the point to having no structure at all. So, trust me, I love a good, soft tannin where it's not overly abrasive in my mouth. But if there's no tannin where they're supposed to be, it's almost like the wine, it just falls flat. It doesn't have the, like, structure or the skeleton to, you know, to stand up on. Also, the smell and taste of alcohol will be more apparent in a wine if it's served too warm. This is because the alcohol evaporates more easily. And so because of this, you might get all those aroma particles are coming off, but the alcohol will overwhelm them. So you'll miss out on all the fun and subtle flavors that the wine has to offer. Now, with this said, I'm going to give you some tips for what to do about this when you're at your own house so you can make sure you're drinking the wine at the right temperature. But what if you're out and about? So I've definitely asked for a chiller at a restaurant when the wine was served too warm. I will admit it is a pet peeve of mine when restaurants store their red wine just casually on the shelves, like near the kitchen, in the, you know, dining room area where it is quite warm. Like, I wish they would just put them either if they have a wine fridge or put them in a cooler area to pull them out of. Because if they just pull it down from the, you know, from the shelf, wherever it is, it's going to be whatever temperature the room is, which again we've learned is usually quite a bit warmer than we want the wine to be. So if I see that, I will often ask for a chiller at the same time to ask that the wine so that we can get the wine chilled down a little bit. I have gotten a couple weird looks, but trust me, the wine tastes so much better and it was 100% worth the weird looks. The other thing too, in terms of white wine. A lot of times a white wine will be served very cold and then they serve it in an ice bucket of sorts of. Sometimes I'll just take it out of the ice bucket and not keep it in there if I want it to warm up again. Super simple things that you can do. Now it's even easier to fix this serving temperature problem at home for white wines if you are storing them in the fridge, which I would only do this if you're planning on drinking the wine within, like probably within the month. The fridge is not a great place to store the wine regularly. You want to have it either in a wine fridge or a cellar or a cooler temperature area. But that isn't the fridge, it's too cold. But if you're storing it in there, cause you're planning to drink it soon, simply take it out about 30 minutes before you plan on pouring the wine. So if it's a white wine, you can put it in the fridge, have it in there, you know, 24 plus hours, simply take it out about 30 minutes before you plan on enjoying it. Now for reds, if you store them at room temperature, go ahead and put them in the fridge about 20 to 30 minutes before you pour the wine again. This will give it that little bit of a chill so it's not too warm. If you want to get a little more nuanced than that, there is a guide for different styles of wine. So this is primarily based on the body of the wine. So remember, body is the weight of the wine. How heavy does it feel in your mouth? You can also use kind of the alcohol level for this. So generally fuller bodied, bolder wines will have higher alcohol versus lighter bodied will have lower alcohol. So wines that you could enjoy straight out of the fridge. I love producing this podcast for you. Every week, but here's the truth. It's not free. That's why I'm so grateful for sponsors. Like the following brands supporting me so that I can share everything I love. About wine with you. If you're able, show them some support back. Thank you to Pour Memory A brilliant way to capture the stories and moments behind every bottle of wine you enjoy. For sponsoring today's episode One of my favorite things about wine isn't just the flavor, it's the memories it creates. If you're like me sometimes the wines you love have nothing to do with the flavor and everything to do with. The people you share them with and the moment you open them. That's exactly what Pour Memory helps you record. Pour memories. Labels stick on your bottles without leaving a residue and the top layer goes into the journal. After you enjoy it, you can track. What you loved, who you shared it with, and what made it memorable. Plus they have an iOS app so you can scan, track and digitally journal your bottles. On the go. Start capturing your wine memories because every bottle has a story worth Remembering. Go to pourmemory.com and use code corkandfizz for 15% off your purchase. I'll be honest, I never really believed chocolate could pair well with wine until I partnered with Bon Chocolates for a local event. Rasha, the owner, created four incredible truffles the that matched perfectly with the wines we were tasting. Bon Chocolates is a European inspired chocolatier right here in the Seattle area. Making beautiful bonbons and confections with fine chocolate in all natural ingredients. They make the perfect gift. Visit their local shop in Bothel or order online at bonchocolatz.com and use code corkandfizz10 for 10% off. One sparkling sparkling wine is definitely one that you could take this straight out of the fridge and it would be quite delicious. Also makes it easier to open the. Open that cork when it comes off if it's pretty cold. Also some lighter bodied white wines, right? So think like Aberino Sauvignon Blanc. What am I missing? Riesling on occasion. All of these wines, like if you're just looking for something or like Vinho Verde, it's another great one that, where it's like light, spritzy, you're kind of going more for texture than you are for flavor. Especially when it's the middle of summer, you can have that one straight out of the fridge. Now for any other type of white wine, this is where you're going to want to take it out of the fridge 30 minutes before you drink it. Now for light and medium bodied red wines, so these are going to be on the lighter scale. Typically lower alcohol, they're not as heavy. More fruit forward. Those you're going to want to place in the fridge for about 30 minutes before you pour them. So my thing is always like if you have whites and reds, like take your whites out of the fridge and put your red wines in and then in 30 minutes enjoy both your red and your white wine. As for kind of the bolder big red wines, higher alcohol, you know, you want to just give them a very short cooling period. So usually about 15 minutes in the fridge will do it. And then if you taste the wine and in general, if you notice that there's not a lot of flavor or the tannins in a red wine are super rough and just very astringent, right? They really dry out your mouth. Try warming the wine up. So there's no like fast way to do this. You just kind of have to let it sit out and wait a little bit. If your nose is burning of alcohol or the wine seems flat or has a dull texture, cool the wine down. Again, not really a fast way to do this, but you know, stick it in the fridge, use your vocill, use a chiller, something like that. And the last thing I wanna say about serving temperature is that in the end it does come down to a personal choice. There are general guidelines, as I've mentioned, but if you like your white wine straight out of the fridge or you want your red wine warmer, you do that, you're drinking the wine, you can enjoy it at any temperature you want. My dad has gotten much more into drinking wine, which is wonderful. And lately he's been, I think it's like his go to saying now whenever we're out. And I tease him a little bit for it, but he always goes, you know, if this was just a bit colder, I think I'd really like it. So I know for my dad prefers, especially if he's drinking, he's drinking primarily white wines at the moment, and so he prefers them with a little bit of a cooler temp on them. I think this helps kind of tone down the alcohol for him and so that works for him. He likes it a little colder than what I would say, you know, than what I would go off of. On the guidelines for yourself, if you're not sure, just experiment and pay attention. When you're drinking a wine, do you, you know, like the wine more right when it's out of the fridge? You know, if you poured your glass and you didn't want to wait and you're sipping on it? Or do you like it more, you know, once it's warmed up, once it's kind of sat in your glass for a little bit. And that will kind of help you learn how you prefer to to drink your wine. Okay. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. If you loved it as much as I did, I would so appreciate it if you could just take a second rate it, leave a review if you haven't already. You can do that on Apple Podcasts. And if you know another wine lover in your life that would enjoy listening to this, please, please share with them. And if you'd like to show additional support for the show, you can become a paid subscriber, click the link in the show notes, and become a monthly supporter for $10 or less a month. This is not required. All of these episodes are available to you free, including my entire backlog. But if you wanted to show some more support, you can do that. You'll get a shout out in the. Next episode I record. Plus, if you choose the $10 per. Month option option, you'll get to choose a topic for a future episode. In next week's episode, we will be debunking the myth that white wine can't age. I'm really excited to talk about that one. Thanks again for listening. And if you want to learn more about wine, come follow me Ork and Fizz on Instagram. Cheers.