Serving Wine at the Right Temperature
Tasting the White Wine

We began with the white, a Sauvignon Blanc.

This ideally should be served around 50F. We began with room temperature, which many people do, either because they don't know better or because the wine warmed up while they were entertaining or cooking dinner. For our experiment this was 72F. At 72F the wine was quite warm and had pretty much no flavor at all. All you could taste was the alcohol and perhaps some hint of flavor. It was sharp and unpleasant.

Next, we moved to 50F. This is actually the proper temperature for the wine, but in our experience this is about the warmest that most people DO serve their white wines. Most serve their whites far cooler. We really enjoyed the wine at this temperature. It was very flavorful, crisp, tasty. This is the bottle that we finished with our swordfish after this stage of the tasting.

We next tested out the wine at 44F. This is a very common temperature range for people to serve a white at - they take it out of the fridge and let it warm up for a short while before consuming it. The wine was smooth, but most of the flavor was muted out of it. There was little aroma to it, and little flavor. Not really bad, but not enjoyable.

Finally, we tried a bottle at 38F, out of the fridge for a few minutes. There was practially no flavor at all. The wine was thin and flavorless. It really wasn't worth drinking this as wine.

We all definitely agreed that the 50F wine was by far the best, and not just for slight reasons. There was a huge difference in the flavor and aroma of the wine at this temperature compared to the other temperatures.

Stage 1: Choosing the Wines
Stage 2: Determining the Temperatures
Stage 3: Tasting the White Wine
Stage 4: Tasting the Red Wine
Stage 5: The Results

Wine Serving Temperature Guidelines