Serving Temperatures
Ref: article6
The right temperature White wines can be taken direct to the table, and, according to the temperature of your cellar, may be served at any time, provided they are cold. I keep the light beverage wines like Chablis, Bordeaux, the dry white blanc de blancs or white wines from Spain in the refrigerator, so that they can be taken out at any time and are always very cold, as indeed they should be. On the other hand, it is a very great mistake to serve really fine white wine like white Burgundy from Meursault or Montrachet, or the fine German Rieslings quite so cold as this. They need to be chilled and not frozen, and are quite all right if served straight from the cellar provided the temperature is not more than 10°C - 13°C (50°F- 55°F) , plus a little extra cold which can be provided by no more than, say, a quarter or half an hour in the refrigerator.
Champagne is at its very best when really cold, but not frozen. Rose wines, which are uniformly light beverage wines (there are one or two exceptions), should be served really cold and indeed, to my taste, are not really palatable otherwise. Even important rose wines, like those from Tavel near Avignon in the Rhone Valley, are best served very cold.
There are very few red wines, however, which derive any benefit from being chilled (the red wine of Provence is an exception) and, in general, the best way to serve them is at room temperature. Another possible exception to this rule is Beaujolais. There is an informed school of thought which thinks that Beaujolais should be drunk very cold. Certainly it tastes delicious either way. It must be remembered, however, that good red wine can be spoiled by being too warm and I have far too many recollections of being honoured by my host with a superb bottle of claret served, it seemed to me, just off the boil and completely ruined. It is much better to serve red wine too cold rather than too hot, but there is really no reason for either, especially in your own home. My general practice, and I can recommend it to you, is to decant red wine for luncheon after breakfast, and red wine for dinner any time after five or six o'clock.
Leave the decanter or the bottle open in your dining-room, or, better still, put it with the saucepans on the rack in the kitchen for a couple of hours, and it should be about right. NEVER plunge the bottle or the decanter into hot water, it merely warms the outside of the wine and causes all sorts of circulations to be set up, and does the wine no good at all. I prefer to decant all my red wine, whether it be cheap medium or expensive. I personally think wine looks better in a decanter, and it will certainly give the wine a chance to breathe before drinking.
