Wine serving temperature, glasses and decanting

What temperature for which wine?

Swiss Wine Valais gives these figures: 6 to 10 °C for a simple sparkling wine, 8 to 10 °C for a light or aperitif white, 10 to 12 °C for a full or barrel-aged white, 10 to 13 °C for a rosé, 15 to 16 °C for a light red and 16 to 18 °C for a full-bodied red. Sweet wines are served at 8 to 12 °C.

Why the differences? Too cold, a wine seems mute: its aromas stay locked in. Too warm, it tastes bitter, heavy, tired or even sticky, and the alcohol stands out. The most aromatic and lightest wines handle cold best.

For Swiss wines: a Fendant or Muscat is served a little cooler than a Johannisberg or Heida; a Pinot Noir or Gamay cooler than a Diolinoir or Cornalin, two more tannic reds, again according to Swiss Wine Valais.

Red wine at “room temperature”, really?

No. Swiss Wine Valais considers the phrase outdated: a heated room sits at around 20 or 21 °C, far too warm for a good red. The wine body finds that most wines are served too warm.

Wine keeps warming in the glass, especially in your hand. So serve it slightly cooler than the target and hold the glass by the stem.

How do you chill or warm a bottle quickly?

The fastest way, according to Swiss Wine Valais, is a bucket filled half with ice and half with cold water. Put the bottle in upside down first, so the wine in the neck cools too. Allow three to five minutes.

The freezer works in a pinch, with a wet bottle, but do not forget it: wine freezes at around −5 to −8 °C and the bottle bursts.

Otherwise, use the 30/30 rule: a wine that is too cold comes out of the fridge 30 minutes before serving; one that is too warm goes in for 30 minutes.

Which glass should you use?

Four or five shapes are enough, even for demanding wine lovers, says Swiss Wine Valais. If you only have one, choose a tulip-shaped glass: it works for every wine, from white to red to sparkling.

To go further: a rounded Burgundy glass for Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Humagne Rouge or Syrah; a Bordeaux glass with a wide bowl for tannic reds such as Cornalin, Diolinoir or Merlot; a smaller white wine glass for Chasselas, Petite Arvine, Heida or Sylvaner, which also works for rosés and sweet wines.

For sparkling wine, a slightly rounded glass lets the aromas show better than a narrow flute.

Whatever the glass: clear, undecorated, with a stem, and filled only two or three fingers high, to leave room for the aromas.

Should you aerate or decant wine?

These are two different things, explains the wine editor of Blick, the Swiss daily. Aerating (pouring into a carafe) opens the aromas and softens the tannins. Decanting, strictly speaking, separates the wine from its sediment.

Aerate young, closed, tannic reds at least an hour before the meal. A light red only needs swirling in the glass. A very old wine, by contrast, should meet the air only at the last moment, since it can oxidise within minutes. According to the same source, simply pulling the cork early and leaving the bottle does almost nothing. Swiss Wine Valais adds that robust, structured reds benefit most.

To decant a wine with sediment: stand the bottle upright for one or two days so the particles settle; open it without shaking it; pour slowly into the decanter with a candle or lamp lighting the neck; stop as soon as the sediment reaches the neck. It stays in the bottle.

In what order should you serve several wines?

Swiss Wine Valais sums up the classic order in five principles: light before heavy, white before red, dry before sweet, simple before complex, young before old. Each wine prepares the next instead of overpowering it.

With a single glass for the whole evening, these principles stop a powerful wine leaving its taste in the next one's glass.