Control Yourself!

I was driving as I often do, hardly paying attention to the road, stuck behind a huge, white truck. While slowly moving along, passing time in my mind, I became lost in thought. The sun was beating down and it was summer in steamy hot St. Louie. Still puttering along stuck behind that truck, lost in thought, I felt my eyes glaze over as my car unknowingly picked up speed. What had been 20 feet behind the truck quickly became 15, then 10, then 5. And it hit me! As it rarely does, a moment of extreme clarity and brilliance of thought. My heart raced and I swerved, just barely missing that huge refrigerated milk truck. And somehow my near brush with doing the backstroke in 5,000 gallons of 40-degree milk gave me the courage to pen this historical article on wine temperature with the hope that more of the “professionals” in the field will begin to take temperature seriously. Why do we temperature control milk but not wine? Sure, milk is more susceptible to higher temperatures than wine, but even wine begins to lose some of its freshness above 75 degrees - and it costs much, much more than milk. I began to unravel this mystery by spending countless hours scouring wine textbooks for definitive temperature control guidelines. My references revealed the extreme importance of storing wine under proper conditions. The ideal conditions for long-term storage lie in the 50- to 55-degree temperature range. Wine should be stored out of sunlight and bright light. Wine also likes to be stored on its side with a little humidity in the air to prevent the cork from drying out. In addition, wine prefers a constant temperature. If you are unable to provide optimal storage conditions, an area of your home or restaurant that is less than 70 degrees will do. Keep in mind, a wine stored at 70 degrees ages much faster than one stored at 50 degrees. With temperature control being central to maintaining the quality and flavor of wines, I have to ask why more restaurants don’t pay attention to this crucial detail. Having been absorbed in this topic for several hours, I was both disturbed and hungry, so I called some friends (all two of them) and we headed out to dinner. I often ask the server, owner or sommelier to match a wine with my dinner, thus allowing me to get the full effect of the restaurant experience. The manager came over and suggested a bottle of red from Bordeaux. She went into splendid detail about the wine, the region and how it would pair wonderfully with my meal. Absolutely fabulous, I thought. It was great to see such enthusiasm. So she left and returned moments later with the bottle. She opened and poured. I nosed and tasted. And then my heart sank. Once again the image of that big milk truck flashed through my mind. The wine was room temperature and out of balance. And the inevitable words that I shouldn’t have had to say came out of my mouth, “Could you put a bit of chill on this wine?” Oddly enough, those words always make me look and feel like the guy who showed up in a white suit for a mud-wrestling event. The impending guilt followed as I questioned whether it was wrong to expect a restaurant or store to serve their wines at a proper temperature or at least close. I realize how difficult it is to run a restaurant, but you keep your milk in a refrigerator, why not your wine? I can guarantee no one has ever paid $60 for a glass of milk. I became disheartened with the restaurant manager who spoke so highly of the wine, yet didn’t care enough to serve or store it properly. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t go to a doctor who was a Christian Scientist, or a dentist who didn’t floss, or a mechanic who only worked on tricycles. Why do we continue to support restaurants that preach we should be drinking wine with our meal yet fail to realize the importance of temperature? So consumers beware: Red wines, depending on body type, prefer to be at a cool 59 to 64 degrees when they hit your glass. Whites, on the other hand, prefer a slightly chillier temperature of 43 to 50 degrees, depending on the wine. However, anything below 40 degrees hampers your sense of taste. All too often, white wines are delivered to the table below 40 degrees then thrown in an ice bucket, ensuring you will never actually taste the wine you ordered. (A very good ploy if the wine is poorly made.) Red wines served over 65 degrees do not show well; their components fall out of balance. Keep in mind that room temperature is much warmer than 65 degrees especially in a steamy hot St. Louie summer. “WE THE CUSTOMERS” can effectively change practices with a collective, conscientious effort. I hereby declare July to be Chet Mckay’s first annual “Wine Temperature Month.” Next time a wine comes to your table, reach out your hand and perform a sort of papal blessing on it. Reds should be cool to the touch and whites shouldn’t feel as though they just spent a month in the Arctic. Ask the powers that be to take care of the problem before serving the wine. If you sense they don’t care, order a glass of milk. Then leave this article behind. But if they are doing it right, thank them for doing their job and then e-mail me (chetmckay@yahoo.com) the restaurant name so I have someplace to go; I’m getting a bit tired of milk.