Homicide by Refrigerator?

In one of Garagiste's recent emails, this one touting the 2005 Domaine Martin Cotes du Rhone Villages "Plan de Dieu," Garagiste owner Jon Rimmerman quotes himself advising a friend to put an open bottle of the wine "somewhere cool" for a couple of days before drinking it ," and then Jon adds parenthetically, "(but not in the refrigeratior - refrigerating a wine kills it)."

First I've heard of this. Any thoughts on it?

Sounds like rhetorical panache to me. But, sound advice if the point of opening the bottle is to let it react (oxygenate and/or outgas) which many young wines respond to (Anne-Claude Leflaive in person at Puligny: If you want to taste my wines young, pour them back and forth a bit to aerate them, or better still, leave them overnight.) In that case, moving the temperature toward freezing (which a refrigerator does) slows the reaction processes, undermining the exercise. (It also kills flavors and aromas if the wine's tasted very cold, but I'll be surprised if it causes permanant damage. I have been surprised before, however.)

Sounds like rhetorical panache to me.

Hyperbolic prose from Garagiste? Say it ain't so, Max!

Mark Lipton

p.s. Were you going to email me about Lazy Creek? <poke>

I've never had a problem refrigerating half bottles I save (immediately filled after opening a 750), or partial bottles of Port. OTOH, a lot of air space in a regular dry wine will tend to slowly degrade the wine, but the same thing happens if you leave the wine at room temperature, and maybe the effect would be even faster!

Of course, a REALLY COLD wine will be rather hard and charmless, but just let it warm up a bit!

You know, he just may be right!!!!
I think it is worth a test - and it ought to be fairly easy.
Last night I finished off a bottle of inexpensive bdx that had been recorked and put in the refrigerator for two days. I had alrady consumed two or three bottles of this before, but left in on the counter overnight rather than the refrigerator, and it was always more expressive and open and together the second day. I took a pretty quick sip and it showed nothing so I let it warm up. I watched two college basketball games, and there was still a bit left in the glass. Even with vigorous swirling, it showed little, less than the first half two days before, and MUCH less than the same wine left on the counter overnight. This, of course, was not a good test beause it relies on "taste memory" rather than side by side comparisons. But next time we have a party with a couple of open bottles, I'm going to refrigerate one, and counter the other, and check it out.