How to cool wine: tips for real winelovers
Should we cool the wines or, conversely, should they be consumed at room temperature? Is any system correct in order to reach the right temperature? Well, it’s not always like that.
First of all, you have to be clear that all wines, including red wines, should be cooled if, at the time they wish to enjoy, they are not at their ideal temperature of consumption.
Therefore, the recurring phrase «wines must be drunk at room temperature» is meaningless and totally wrong. In fact, by spreading this false belief, on many occasions, certain wines have been consumed above their recommended temperature. That failed decision involves drinking a totally different wine, since it directly affects its aroma and flavor.
In this sense, if a wine has been properly cooled, its acidity, its excess sugar and its alcoholic strength are balanced. However, the heat is responsible for enhancing all these sensations and at the same time, moderates the bitterness of the tannins. In this way, the idea that tannic wines need a little more temperature is extracted, while those that are more acidic should be served somewhat fresher.
In general, the ideal temperatures for each type of wine are: sweet whites (between 4 ℃ and 7 ℃), dry young whites (between 6 ℃ and 8 ℃), barrel fermented whites (between 9 ℃ and 12 ℃), rose (between 9 ℃ and 12 ℃), young reds (between 12 ℃ and 15 ℃), aging reds (between 15 ℃ and 17 ℃) and reserve and large reserve reds (between 16 ℃ and 18 ℃).
How you should cool a wine
The first thing you should do is correctly identify the type of wine you are going to serve and know what temperature you need, as we have said before.
For example, it is not the same for a young red wine than for a sweet white and is something that you should have very controlled.
Next, one of the first ideas is that, if you do not have a heated cabinet and you need to cool the wine quickly, use an ice bucket with ice and water, because the fusion of these two elements becomes an excellent conductor of cold .
If, on the other hand, you have some more time, you can put it in the fridge. But, be careful, since the red wine only takes between 30 and 45 minutes to cool, unlike the white one, which will take between 1 or 2 and a half hours.
However, if you do not have ice in your summer dinner, a third method as effective as the previous two is to wrap your bottle with plenty of wet kitchen paper. In this way, water will facilitate the attachment of paper to glass. Then, put the bottle lined in the fridge for no more than 15 minutes and it will be ready to be served in each of the wine glasses.
Finally, we present what is possibly the most original trick to cool a wine, although it requires some foresight. It consists of storing a container with several grapes, clean and dry, inside the freezer. If you are faced with the situation that you need to cool a wine quickly, introduce a couple of frozen grapes into your glass and, in a couple of minutes, it will be cold, as if it were a peculiar ice cube, but without affecting its composition. This system, because it does not mix water with the wine itself, largely preserves its flavor.
How you should not cool a wine
In this regard, it is not recommended that you directly place ice in the wine glass, nor that you use the freezer as the only system to cool it abruptly. In both cases, the rapid temperature contrast will seriously damage the taste of the wine, even if the difference is a few degrees.