while i'm not sure i would go as far as herman hesse, i am gaining an appreciation of "pleasant temperature", especially as it refers to my wines. my parents, in an act of extreme kindness and generosity not uncharacteristic for them, bought me a wine.....cooler i guess you call it. i have always sort of thought that the only things that qualified as wine coolers were produced by bartles and jaymes, came in such flavors as green apple and fresh strawberry, and were consumed en masse in the early to mid nineties, preferably poolside. lucky for me, this is not what they got me, rather a wine cooling apparatus , more specifically the "Vinotemp 21 Bottle, Thermo-Electric, stainless steel, 2 Zone Wine Cooler"
i love my new wine toy, but it's presence in my apartment has had three immediate effects:
1. i feel really cool, knowing that i am treating my wine the way a proper wine connoisseur would treat his or her most prized bottles (when i'm feeling this way, i am of course ignoring the fact that i am not a proper wine connoisseur in any way shape or form, or even really know what that might mean).
2. i feel like the kid whose parents foolishly buy him the nike air jordans (4th generation, black, gray, and red) the day before junior high basketball tryouts and then he doesn't make the team and is left playing rec basketball with a sweet pair of jordans.
3. i spend time that i should be using to not fail grad school wondering about the temperature at which i should store my wines.
it is this third point that is the purpose of this entry. after doing some quick research on the web i am thoroughly confused. of all the temperature advice, i think my favorite comes from a website that i can now of course not find, but summing up, said "twenty minutes before serving, put your red wines in the fridge, and take your white wines out". Wine Intro has a chart with some rather impractical temperature guidelines. can anyone offer any guidance in deciphering all of this - in the meantime, my vinotemp air jordans will be set at 53degrees and 61degrees.
2 comments:
Start with 49 for whites and then add 2 degrees for every percentage point of alcohol content above 12%.
The base red temperature is 63 then add 1 degree for every half percentage point of alcohol content above 12.5%.
Those, of course, are for "New World" wines. "Old World" wines should always be served at "room" temperature no matter the color or alcohol content.
None of the above matters if you're drinking through a straw.
thanks erwin - that is very helpful. i should have just asked you in the first place. any thoughts on ports? i recently received one actually brought to me from portugal and it seems that there are differing schools of thought on temperature. apparently the portuguese drink port chilled, but everyone else does not. what would you suggest? it is a 10 year aged tawny.
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