red wines

[Innkeeper]

Hi Zerelda, and welcome to the Wine Board. The difference between the serving temperatures of red and white wine is not as much as you question may suggest. We are talking about 10 degrees F. here. Red wine should be served around 65 degrees F, and white wine around 55 degrees F. Lighter reds, such as Beaujolais are best in between at 60 degrees. Sparkling wines should be cooled to around 45 degrees.

Why the difference? It has to do with the temperatures that different wines show their best attributes at. If you drink most of your wine in restaurants you get a different picture. They typically serve white wine too cold and red wine too warm. This is because they keep their white wine in one of the refers at the same temperature as the keep butter, eggs, meats, etc. They keep their reds in a rack in an area normally kept at the same temperature as the rest of the place which is usually 70-75 degrees. This can result in a delta in the serving temps of reds and whites of 30 degrees. You can see how this is problematical. We let overchilled whites warm up before drinking. Reds are more difficult. If it comes early, and the bottle feels warm, we'll ask the server to slip it into the freezer or at least the refer until the steak is done. If worse comes to worse, we'll steal some ice from the water glass in drop it into the wine!