Wine tasting can be simple or complex, depending on how you wish to make it. However, if part of the fun is treating your wine like a treasured antique, a little wine cooler temperature know-how will enable you to make informed choices about your wine before you store and serve it. This will also allow you to elevate your sipping experience every time you decide to take your wine. Here is how to set wine cooler temperature
Setting Temperature for Long Term Storage
When you intend to store wines for a long time, you need to set your Dual Zone Wine Coolers to obtain a relaxed environment and a stable temperature. The temperature should be maintained between 53 to 57 degrees without fluctuation. Please note that warmer temperatures age wines too quickly while cooler temperatures stunt the evolution of volatile flavor compounds. Also, the storage environment should have humidity levels of about 70% to keep corks moist. This is because dry cork permits air into the bottle, which causes unpleasant oxidation.
Setting Temperature for Short Term Storage
If you intend to store your wine for the short term, it’s ideal to go for a dedicated wine refrigerator or wine chiller since they are designed to retain humidity rather than driving it out. They also come in different sizes to accommodate a multitude of spaces and collections. What you need to do is to set the wine chiller to an optimum storage temperature of about 40 degrees. This suggests that your kitchen fridge is too cold and too dry for proper short-term wine storage
Setting Wine Serving Temperature
Adequate serving temperature is not the same as the appropriate storage temperature. However, you can still use wine cooler to maintain bottles at a proper serving temperature as follows;
Red Wine Serving Temperature: Reds are well served while partially chilled, which is between 58 and 65 degrees, depending on the exact style. Generally, to allow drinkers to appreciate their bouquet fully, serve complex or mature wines are maintained at a temperature about 61 to 65 degrees. On the other hand, tannic reds should be served at the temperature range of between 61 to 65 degrees to avoid exaggerating their astringency as experienced with a cooler temperature. Lastly, light reds are best served colder at about 55 degrees.
White Wine Serving Temperature: White wine is generally served colder than red wine. But this does not mean that it should be so cold to mute its delicate aromatics. Therefore for white wine, you should set your wine cooler to attain between 45 to 55 degrees depending on the grape and style of the bottle. Generally, complex whites should be served on the warmer end of the high range, while lighter whites should be more refreshing as a way of maximizing their freshening qualities. On the other hand, the sparkling whites are best served while very cold to maintain their crisp carbonation. Lastly, the sweet white wines should be served while chilled to avoid cloying which occurs at warm temperatures
Generally, it’s ideal to use Dual Zone Wine Coolers to attain specific saving temperature. Similarly, it’s good to experiment at your level with saving temperature to find out how your favorite wine changes as it cools or warms.
