The thing about drinking wine is there are too many rules. Drink red with this and white with that, age this wine, serve that wine in only this specific glass; its enough to take all the fun out of it. The other night, feeling rather rebellious and more importantly, extremely hot and sweaty from a day of 100 degree heat, I put a bottle of red wine in the refrigerator for an hour before opening it. And you know what? It was delicious! This wasn’t an expensive bottle – I wouldn’t recommend putting a $40.00 Pinot Noir from Oregon in the fridge – but for my $7.00 Columbia Crest Cabernet Sauvignon, it was the perfect solution. I didn’t feel like drinking white yet I wanted something refreshing, and since in your own home there aren’t any wine police that will come rushing out when you break a wine “rule,” why not chill a red a little? After all, there are some reds, like French Beaujolais,, that do have a tradition of being chilled which proves that even the French aren’t entirely opposed to the idea. In fact, Americans are often accused of serving red wine too warm and white wine too cold. Keeping a bottle of white submerged in a bucket of ice or stored indefinitely in your fridge can kill any delicate nuances of flavor. Serving red wine at room temperature, as is common practice, means serving it at a temperature that is below 68 degrees. I guarantee you, my house the other night was well above 68 degrees, so that poor bottle needed some time in the fridge. A co-worker I once had at a wine store swore that the best thing to do with a
cheap, red party wine was to put a slight chill on it. The reason? You know how you’re always being told to bring cheese up to room temperature before eating it so the flavor will be more pronounced? Well, the opposite of this theory can be applied to wine. That $7.00 Cabernet I bought is a decent wine and one I drink often, but not every flavor in it is absolutely amazing. In this case, I don’t mind if some of the wine’s flavor is toned down a bit, and chilling it does just that. If you try chilling a red at your next dinner party, be prepared for people to start whispering and throwing disapproving glances your way. They’ll try to make you feel like your doing something wrong, but don’t listen to them. They obviously have no idea how to live outside the rules and have a little fun.
The thing about drinking wine is there are too many rules. Drink red with this and white with that, age this wine, serve that wine in only this specific glass; its enough to take all the fun out of it. The other night, feeling rather rebellious and more importantly, extremely hot and sweaty from a day of 100 degree heat, I put a bottle of red wine in the refrigerator for an hour before opening it. And you know what? It was delicious! This wasn’t an expensive bottle – I wouldn’t recommend putting a $40.00 Pinot Noir from Oregon in the fridge – but for my $7.00 Columbia Crest Cabernet Sauvignon, it was the perfect solution. I didn’t feel like drinking white yet I wanted something refreshing, and since in your own home there aren’t any wine police that will come rushing out when you break a wine “rule,” why not chill a red a little? After all, there are some reds, like French Beaujolais,, that do have a tradition of being chilled which proves that even the French aren’t entirely opposed to the idea. In fact, Americans are often accused of serving red wine too warm and white wine too cold. Keeping a bottle of white submerged in a bucket of ice or stored indefinitely in your fridge can kill any delicate nuances of flavor. Serving red wine at room temperature, as is common practice, means serving it at a temperature that is below 68 degrees. I guarantee you, my house the other night was well above 68 degrees, so that poor bottle needed some time in the fridge. A co-worker I once had at a wine store swore that the best thing to do with a 
cheap, red party wine was to put a slight chill on it. The reason? You know how you’re always being told to bring cheese up to room temperature before eating it so the flavor will be more pronounced? Well, the opposite of this theory can be applied to wine. That $7.00 Cabernet I bought is a decent wine and one I drink often, but not every flavor in it is absolutely amazing. In this case, I don’t mind if some of the wine’s flavor is toned down a bit, and chilling it does just that. If you try chilling a red at your next dinner party, be prepared for people to start whispering and throwing disapproving glances your way. They’ll try to make you feel like your doing something wrong, but don’t listen to them. They obviously have no idea how to live outside the rules and have a little fun.
1 comment:
When we lived in the Tampa/Clearwater area of Florida for 3 years, where the temperature is 91 degrees plus and very humid for 10 months of the year, it became a usual practice to chill reds before drinking them - putting them in the fridg for 20-30 minutes before drinking them. I recall doing this mainly with Cote du Rhones and inexp. Spanish reds.
And as you say, it makes red wine refreshing - and sometimes, that what you really want.
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