Not All White Wines Require Prolonged Chilling

A cool glass of white wine can be enjoyed any time of year, but it always seems to work best for sipping as the weather turns warmer.

This prompts me to point out a common mistake when preparing to serve most medium and full-bodied white wines: over chilling.

Serving a white wine too cold masks the fruit and floral flavors and aromas of the wine. This tends to overemphasize the wine’s other elements of taste such as alcohol and, if barrel fermented, oak, turning it into a chilled, watery liquid that vaguely resembles anything wine-like.

White wines that fall into this category tend to taste better at about 45 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit, with pinot gris and sauvignon blanc leaning towards the lower end of this scale and viognier and chardonnay near the top.

But since your refrigerator normally runs at around 35 degrees, you’ll need to remember a few relatively quick fixes to get these white wines in sync temperature-wise and optimize their flavors.

If you have a bottle of white wine that’s been sitting on the shelf and needs to be chilled down a bit, I find that a good 45 to 60 minutes in the refrigerator will do the job. Conversely, a bottle that’s been in the frig too long needs to be left out about this same amount of time to warm it sufficiently into the proper temperature range.

If you think over chilling a white wine doesn’t matter, take this test. Chill a bottle of chardonnay overnight, open it, swirl it, and taste it. Then leave it on the counter for an hour and try it again. The enhanced flavors and aromatics should be remarkable.

One other trick for warming up a wine once it’s been poured is to hold the bowl in the palms of your hands and gently rock it back and forth for a minute or two. This is, however, the one and only time your hands should touch anything on the wine glass other than the stem or base because over handling can lead to overheating of the wine (after all, you’re exposing it to a 98.6 degree warming device).

And while I’m on that topic, left me get on my soap box and express my dislike for stemless wine glasses. Not only does excessive handling of these glasses warm up your wine prematurely, it also leaves the glass with a smattering of unsightly fingerprints. I’ll gladly take up the label of “wine snob” on this one, and reserve those glasses for a two-finger pour of Basil Hayden Bourbon instead.