The Correct Wine Temperature - What's The Perfect Temperature For Your Wine!

The right wine temperature plays a bigger role than you might think.

Optimal wine temperature is very important, especially in gastronomy. With red wine in particular, otherwise excellent wines are often served too warm. This is a barrier to perfect enjoyment and should be avoided if possible. Here, we have briefly summarised how to properly enjoy your wine and will give you an overview of generally applicable rules for the perfect temperature:

	Characteristic	Wine temperature
Red wine	powerful & intense	18-20°C
	medium strength	16-18°C
	young & light	14-18°C
	very fruity & very young	12-14°C
White wine	young & dry	9-11°C
	spicy & aromatic	10-12°C
	mature from 5 years	10-12°C
	semi dry	12-14°C
	champagne brut and sparkling wine	10-14°C
	vintage champagne	12-15°C
	prestigious blends	13-16°C
Sweet wine		11-14°C

Champagne from great vintages can be drunk in a similar way to red wine. The rule here is simple: Experiment and be amazed!

The red wine room temperature confusion

If, as a guest, you point out that the red wine that has just been served to you is too warm, you will very often get the answer: "You should drink red at room temperature". This is correct in principle, but it's important to closely examine when this golden rule for red wine temperature came into being. It was at a time when the average room temperature was below 20°C and red wine could be enjoyed at any time without refrigeration. However, if you are sitting at 35°C in your favourite restaurant, for example at the Naschmarkt in Vienna, then you are miles away from the optimal drinking temperature if your wine has not been chilled for you beforehand. In principle, we recommend that you always fill the glass with slightly cool red wine, especially in hot months - as it takes on the outside temperature particularly quickly.

Attention: Of course, as everywhere, there are certain exceptions when it comes to wine temperature. So special or regional wines are often treated a little differently. For example, Japanese sake (rice wine) is partially infused with hot water by its drinkers.