Wine Serving 101: Temperature

Generally

It is well-known that the ideal temperature for storing wine is 55°F or 13°C. What is a little less well-known is that there are ideal temperatures for serving wine also, but it varies according to the wine.

If you serve a wine too cool, the flavors of the wine will be hidden. If you serve a wine too hot, the alcohol becomes the predominant feature of the wine. 

---

Ideal Temperatures

Below is a chart displaying the ideal serving temperatures for various types of wine along with some other common temperatures for reference. These temperatures are guidelines, not hard and fast rules. However, there are two things to note:

1. No wines should be served at room temperature, as it’s too hot.
2. No wine should be served directly from the refrigerator, as it’s too cold. 

---

What It Preserves

Serving light, dry white wines and rosés at the appropriate temperature preserves their freshness and fruitiness. Serving sparkling wines at the correct temperature not only preserves their freshness, but also helps maintain more delicate bubbles.

Because sweetness is accentuated with warmer temperatures, chilling a white dessert wine helps preserve its balance without subduing its rich aromas. 

Wine Tasting 101

Have you ever tasted a wine and loved it but couldn’t explain why you liked it? It’s like one of those dreams when you're screaming for help, but not making any noise. Frustrating for sure. Below is quick guide to tasting wines with a view to describing them.

---

Wine tasting terms generally fall into six categories:

---

Appearance

You should always begin tasting a wine by looking at it. Sight can give you many clues about a wine, and should be the first basis on which you form conclusions about a wine. These initial conclusions can later be confirmed using your other senses.

Observations from sight include:  clarity, brightness, color, concentration, viscosity and the presence of carbonation or sediment.

---

Nose

Your sense of smell is probably the most important sense you use to analyze a wine. Humans can differentiate among approximately 10,000 different aromas, while only being able to differentiate between five, maybe six, tastes. Observations from the nose of a wine include fruit and non-fruit aromas and the presence or absence of wood.

---

Sweetness Level

After you’ve observed a wine’s appearance and aromas, it’s time to taste the wine. On your palate, you’ll be able to confirm or reject your initial conclusions from your sight and nose, including its fruit and non-fruit tastes and the presence or absence of wood.

From our observations of sight, smell and taste, you should have had a perception of the relative sweetness of the wine. Remember, the sweetness of a wine is subjective and determined not only by the amount of residual sugar of the wine, but also the interaction of the residual sugar with the levels of alcohol, acid and tannin in the wine. The chart below summarizes the sweetness of a wine in terms of residual sugar.

---

Structure

The structure of a wine refers to the relationship between its acidity, its alcohol content and its tannins. Structure doesn’t describe the flavors of a wine, but can provide a clue as to its aging potential. Wines with good structure are much more likely to age better than wines without good structure.

---

Finish

A wine’s finish is the assessment of how longs it lingers in your mouth. This assessment is measured in terms of time. The flavors of a wine with a long finish will linger in your mouth long after the wine is gone. Wines of higher quality generally have longer finishes than wines of lesser quality.

---

Want to learn more? Check out our newsletter on our website!