Most people will probably answer this question with a simple “Yes for White, and No for Red”, and very few would argue against this perceived wisdom.
We typically serve / drink red wine at “room temperature”, but this does somewhat beg the question “what is room temperature?” as this will change with the climate and from location to location, and let’s be honest, whilst we might use a food thermometer to check that our chicken is cooked through, but even then probably only if we are serving to guests, we are not going to put it in our wine glass!
In case you were wondering, room temperature for the purposes of wine equals 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit (Chicken should be 65 to 74 degrees!).
The reality is that it is highly unlikely that your room will be at this temperature, and more often than not it will be warmer, especially during a New Zealand summer.
Does this really matter? Well, wine is a product that changes and evolves, not always for the better it must be said, and there are many elements that influence this but the outcome is that the taste, aroma and texture, the three key determinants of our enjoyment of the wine, are all impacted by the environmental conditions that the wine encounters which logically includes the temperature too.
So taking this into account we probably should pay attention to the temperature, even if a thermometer is taking it a step too far!
Many wine aficionados are now of the opinion that you can and should place your bottle of red wine into the fridge 15 to 30 minutes before opening; conversely they also say that we are drinking our white wine too cold, and that we should remove it from the fridge a similar length of time before opening.
So what is the correct answer? There probably is not one, as each wine will react differently to how it has been stored, the environment it is to be consumed in, even the glass it is served in, and let’s not forget the palette of the person drinking it.
However, when we are at home we can control most, if not all of these factors, and we probably have some favourite “stock” wines that we turn to more often than not, so the best advice is “experiment” - see if changing the temperature impacts positively or negatively on your favourite wines, and choose what works for you, not what the experts opine!!!
What has any of this to do with WINERAX? Well, the good news is that we use ABS plastic to construct our wine racks, which is a far better material than wood or steel for use in a fridge or in cold store conditions as it will not decay or go mouldy. Plus, one 4 bottle modular WINERAX unit is dimensionally perfect for fitting onto a shelf in your typical fridge, just order 1 x WRXrail and 1 x WRXside per shelf. As we say at WINERAX: “Any height, any width, any where - SIMPLE!
