Wine Chronicles: The Case for Cooling Your Red Wine
By Dan Berger
The practice of serving red wine at “room temperature” stems from much cooler conditions in old French châteaux. Modern California reds, particularly Napa Valley cabernets, are often softer, higher in alcohol and lower in acidity, making them better suited to being served slightly chilled. Cooler temperatures enhance balance, preserve aromas and improve the overall drinking experience.
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. – The style that is most popular these days for cabernet sauvignon, the Napa Valley’s greatest attraction, really is not oriented toward the dinner table.
Historically, cabernet with meals was roughly 12% or 13% alcohol, had substantial acidity so it could pair nicely with savory, proteinaceous foods and was rarely sipped sans victuals. Hardy cheeses at the end of a meal were always complemented by a substantial red, whether it be Port, amarone or a Napa cab.
Starting roughly 30 years ago, cabernet was transmogrified into a style that was much bigger, bolder and so soft that it became possible to consume it without food. Those who deride this result have begun calling it a cocktail wine.
There is nothing wrong with this. It just takes getting used to.
What we choose to drink and how we drink it depends on many things: our mood, the room temperature, our knowledge of beverages, and probably another five or six parameters that vary so greatly from person to person and drink to drink that it probably is impossible to delineate why we choose what we do.
Challenge your vocabulary with this week’s mystery word. Submit your answer in the poll and check the bottom of the page for the correct answer.
Many Americans drink cola. I doubt that most of those people care very much about what’s in it. (Coca-Cola recently announced that it would begin using cane sugar and is testing whether to add fiber to some products. I heard no complaints from any consumers.) But some drinks do call for a bit of insight into what’s in them, how they are made and other esoteric elements.
Those who are most knowledgeable about particular beverages tend to be finnicky about what’s in them and what qualities define the best.
Take coffee. After water, coffee is probably the world’s most ubiquitous drink. But it can take on several forms, especially depending on where it is from.
Technically, coffee beans are not beans but berries, which you might discover if you watched any the fascinating YouTube videos from a British coffee obsessionist by the name of James Hoffmann, who may be the most dedicated coffee maven of them all.
Hoffmann has made dozens of videos on coffee, including on the origins of various coffees, the different ways to make it, the proper water temperature at which to brew it and the proper temperature at which to consume it.
Which leads us to beverages consumed at various temperatures. Tea is widely consumed iced in the United States. I knew a British gentleman decades ago who believed iced tea to be an abomination. He once told me he thought it was one of America’s worst inventions.
He was struck by this scenario that played out at many American restaurants: A server asks diners about beverage choices. One diner says “Tea, please.” And almost all U.S. servers ask, “Hot tea?” My British friend aways chuckled. In England, tea is always hot.
Tradition calls for red wines, particularly cabernet sauvignon, especially from the Napa Valley, to be served at what is nominally called “room temperature.” This is a phrase that has never been formally described.
Oh, attempts have been made, but they almost always fail, simply because the phrase is really a translation from the French in which the word chambré referred to a room in a drafty castle that had no or insufficient heating. In other words, it was very cool.
How and why the phrase “room temperature” crept into the American idiom and then took up permanent residence is something I will never know the answer to. But this myth of room temperature has become ludicrous.
It is for this reason that in the United States the customary way to consume most red wines is almost always warm. Here is a challenge: Order a glass of red wine in a typical U.S. restaurant. About 97% of the time the wine arrives too warm.
The magazine France Today explains this: “Room temperature, or chambré, is a measurement referring to a range of 54° to 57°F, which is a few degrees above that of a cellar. Bear in mind that this was set when châteaux didn’t have central heating and their walls were three feet thick. For the record, early-drinking reds, rosés, Beaujolais and vins de pays are meant to be drunk at 50°F to 54°; young Bordeaux and Burgundies at 57° to 59°F. And complex, mature Burgundies at 59° to 63°F, and mature Bordeaux at 63° to 65°F.”
(Side note: there are literally dozens of thermometers that are intended to take the temperature of your wine. There are other kinds of thermometers that will do the job equally well and probably cost a lot less. I own two of them, but I do not use them because I don’t have to.)
These suggested temperatures, which are the approximate temperatures in chateaus a century ago, were designed to improve the wine-tasting experience by allowing the wines to display their proper varietal and regional characteristics. Wine aromas are usually improved when the wines are served at the appropriate temperatures.
I have always served red wines cooler than do restaurants. I use the phrase “cellar temperature.” I recall several episodes in which I requested an ice bucket for a warm red wine. (The worst was at an upscale but un-air-conditioned New York Italian café. I ordered a fine Barolo. It came to the table warm. Our self-aggrandizing waiter advised me that “red wine is not served cold.” A verbal scuffle ensued.
I replied that red wine is also not served warm. When he didn’t bring the ice bucket, I spoke to the manager. He, amazingly, sided with the waiter. He used the phrase “room temperature.” I suggested that room temperature did not mean that the wine should be 85 degrees. The rest of the evening was awkward.)
Most of the red wines made in the United States today, especially in California’s North Coast, which includes Napa and Sonoma, are being made to be consumed extremely young. Most of them have higher alcohols than they need and tend to be harsh if consumed at room temperature.
Almost all popular red wines are made to be fairly big (higher alcohols), rich (lower acidity) and soft (lower tannins and/or sweet). They are typically not made to pair with food.
One reason is that acid levels in California red wines cannot be particularly high (nor can they have pH levels that are particularly low) is because wines that are tart do not work for most Americans. Contrast this with the way the French and Italians consume their wines.
Red Bordeaux, for example, normally has more tannin than do our wines, which French wine consumers prefer because they usually pair the wines with savory, high-protein foods. It’s even more pronounced in Italy, where sangiovese (Chianti), barbera and nebbiolo (Barolo) are three of the most commonly produced fine red wines. All are high in acidity and work best with food.
On several trips to Italy, I found that each of these red wines is almost always served with foods such as Parmigiano, pastas, bread and olive oil, olives and other savories.
Because most Americans consume lower-acid reds at “room temperature” (too warm) and because California winemakers continue to produce wines of that style, I find that far too many domestic red wines are deficient in acidity and do not work well with savory foods. This is especially true at the lower price points, where wineries are producing wine for the masses, ignoring wine-lovers.
Domestic red wine made in mass quantities it almost always acid-deficient and/or sweet.
This incongruence between theoretically higher-quality but mass-produced wines shows up most graphically in local restaurants’ by-the-glass programs, where most offerings now include cabernets that are far too soft to pair with savory foods.
Consuming red wines that are slightly chilled is a trend that I began noticing around 2015, when my wife tasted a Russian River Valley pinot noir. It had received a high score from an East Coast wine critic. My wife was particularly sensitive to balance and structure, and she asked for an ice cube. I sipped the wine and noticed the same thing: The pinot had such low acidity that neither of us could drink it. (I immediately questioned the high score it had received.)
Also, the wine had more alcohol than it needed, but adding ice helped to make it more approachable. Not only did it chill the wine down, it also dropped the alcohol to a better level. And that began a trend in our house for years. And it led to me send emails to wineries statewide asking them to discontinue sending unsolicited samples. Instead, I requested technical details before anyone sent anything.
However, adding ice cubes to wine has a major drawback: It can dilute the wine to where it no longer exhibits what the winemaker intended. Looking at the statistical information helps me determine if the wine has the right structure for me and my readers.
Rejecting unsolicited samples had one negative effect: I had to begin purchasing wines I was relatively sure would have the balance I think all great wine should have. This obviously was more costly than trying sample bottles.
Then a few years ago it became obvious that another good tactic was to cool the red wines down in a refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes before evaluating them. This procedure greatly benefited me to understand the wines because I first was able to ascertain the aromas the wines might have displayed in a wine cellar (about 60 degrees).
And as the wines began to warm up, I could see additional elements that were masked by the lower temperature.
Then I realized that many California red wines (notably Napa Valley cabernets) are slowly becoming softer than they had been, which means that more and more reds are coming to market that call for serving at cooler temperatures. Not only were the wines more easily analyzed when they were cool to start, but they were far more enjoyable to drink.
The colder a wine is the more likely it is to have better acidity. Even though the acid doesn’t change, colder temperatures make it seem as if a red wine has better balance. As a result, I have become a believer in serving red wines much cooler than “room temperature.”
And now we get to one of the worst aspects of this “room temperature” myth: some restaurants’ treatment of by-the-glass bottles that are not emptied as the dining period concludes. The best tactic is simply to refrigerate the red wines that are being held over to the next day.
Leaving the bottles unrefrigerated means they will oxidize rapidly. Chemical reactions speed up as temperatures increase. By this, you may infer (correctly) that chemical reactions slow down the colder the temperature of the liquid becomes. For that reason, all bottles that are opened immediately begin to oxidize. The longer they sit around, the worse they become.
And in some cases, a bottle may have been opened a long time ago, the day before or even earlier. If then it is left on a countertop, it will deteriorate. And then when someone orders a glass, that’s what they get.
Leaving red bottles in the refrigerator until about an hour before the first patrons arrive allows the wine to return to cellar temperature, which is appropriate for service.
As for Napa Valley cabernet, drink it as a cocktail if you wish, but it is definitely going to be a lot better if it is quite cool than if it is served at 75 degrees or so just because that’s the temperature of the room or the patio.
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Dan Berger has been writing about wine since 1975.
Wine Discovery:
2022 Gatekeeper ($39, case deal $350) — Made by Claire Weinkauf, owner of Picayune Cellars & Mercantile in Calistoga, this Rhône-style blend (60% grenache, 20% Syrah, 20% mourvèdre) shows a dark-red core with a purple rim. Aromas of black currant, cocoa nibs, floral notes and cardamom lead to a fleshy palate of wild berries, tobacco and subtle earth. Smooth but structured tannins and medium-plus acidity add lift, while moderate alcohol keeps it lively and accessible — especially when served slightly chilled. Pair with hearty cheese, pesto focaccia or grilled lamb skewers. — Tim Carl
Today’s Polls:
This Week's Word Challenge Reveal:
The correct answer is B: "Measurement of temperature."
Thermometry is the science and practice of measuring temperature, whether with traditional liquid‑in‑glass thermometers, digital probes or infrared sensors. In winemaking, precise temperature readings are essential for managing fermentation, ensuring wine stability and serving at the point where aroma, texture and balance are optimal. As Dan Berger notes, even small temperature changes can alter how a wine’s acidity and structure are perceived.
The word comes from the Greek "thermos" (heat) and "metron" (measure) and was first recorded in English in 1858 in the writings of Dionysius Lardner. Its roots stretch back to ancient observations of heat expansion, with a major leap in the early 1600s when Galileo and Santorio Santorio built thermoscopes. Around 1612, Santorio added a numerical scale, enabling the first quantitative temperature readings. By the mid‑17th century, Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici developed sealed liquid‑in‑glass thermometers, innovations later refined by Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in the early 1700s — the foundation for the thermometry used today in science and fine-wine service.
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