Keeping decanted reds at the correct temp.

I am holding a rather involved dinner in a few weeks. We will be serving 3 reds with the main dish. All will benefit from decanting. Any ideas on how to keep them at the correct temp during service?

Gary Bobier

I am holding a rather involved dinner in a few weeks. We will be serving 3 reds with the main dish. All will benifit from decanting. Any ideas on how to keep them at the correct temp during service?

Gary Bobier

Depends on the layout of your dining room/serving area. Is there a corner of the room that is cooler than others. Depending on whether you are afraid of the wines becoming too hot or too cold I have found that placing them near a respective source of heat/cool temperature usually does the trick.

I don't know where you are located, but in mid-March it should still be coolish outside and windows may help.

I'm one of those dangerous heretics you hear about, Gary.

I say let them sit on the side board until you're ready to pour them. If they wimp out, they weren't worth the effort anyway.

Would depend upon your setup. In summer when my ground floor might be in mid-70s, I might decant and put decanter in my basement (mid-60s) till right before service. In winter, we keep our house around 66°F so I don't worry about it. Unless room is more than 10 degrees above or below your desired temp, it'll take a while for wine to warm/cool, so no big worries. If it is a real worry, stick the decanter in cold water in the sink for a couple minutes.

or as Rahsaan suggests, put by a cold window.

I am holding a rather involved dinner in a few weeks. We will be serving 3 reds with the main dish. All will benifit from decanting. Any ideas on how to keep them at the correct temp during service?

Gary Bobier

Depends on the layout of your dining room/serving area. Is there a corner of the room that is cooler than others. Depending on whether you are afraid of the wines becoming too hot or too cold I have found that placing them near a respective source of heat/cool temperature usually does the trick.

I don't know where you are located, but in mid-March it should still be coolish outside and windows may help.

We are in Las Vegas and the dinner will be the Second week in May so the out side idea is out of the question. I do have a side table and a 48 bottle wine fridge. I have to understand how I might place the 3 decanters of wine perhaps in the fridge.

Gary

We are in Las Vegas and the dinner will be the Second week in May so the out side idea is out of the question. I do have a side table and a 48 bottle wine fridge. I have to understand how I might place the 3 decanters of wine perhaps in the fridge.

Gary

The point about it being cool outside was not to literally place the bottles outside but to place them near the window where it is cooler.

But if you're in Vegas then I assume you will be in AC? So then the temperature shouldn't be too much of a problem. In fact you might need to make sure things are not too cold? Of course if you're still worried about things being too warm you could also place the bottles near the AC vent. It all depends on the room.

But if you have the wine fridge that should help. Although I would imagine you would need to remove the red wine some time before serving.

Gary,

Decant the wine until just before service. Re-bottle the wines and place the bottles in stainless steel, double-walled wine buckets. I picked a couple of them up for about $15 each. They work great for maintaining the temperature of red wines during service.

if your room temp is way off your desired temp, I'd agree that doubledecanting and putting in wine fridge (or regular fridge) would work. If you want to leave in decanter, putting near a AC duct is one solution, or just putting whole decanter in cool water for a few minutes. Dry off before passing!

I've been known to put a decanter of wine in and out of the fridge in 20 minute intervals and I worry much more about being too warm rather than too cold.

Personally, I find serving temperature to be VERY important, especially with mature Burgs and Bordeaux. Of course, aeration time also matters a lot, and with these I usually use the slow oxygenation method of Monsieur Audouze, but accelerated a bit by taking out a small inital taste to enlarge the surface area. The slow-O procedure varies with the wine, and really old and fragile ones respond most readily. It can take a LONG time with ones that are "only" 10 - 15 years old.

But getting back to the original question, I find that "1 degree" difference, or even less, can make a substantial difference, at least with a great older Burg. So I always use an insulated picnic bag, with a little gel-filled cooler block inside, to keep my bottles, or carafes, cool. The one I use has a mesh pocket on the top, so the block isn;t in direct contact with the bottles. If I'm doing a dinner and have more than 3 or 4 wines I will use a bigger picnic "ice chest" sort of cooler, again with a couple of larger gel-filled "freezer blocks" inside to keep everything nicely cool. But you do have to be careful so as to not overchill anything. Experience and experimenting helps a lot.

But a fine mature wines (especially) loses fruit and focus as it warms. Next time you have something that seems a little soft and difuse, try cooling it down a couple degrees. You might be shocked at the difference it can make!

I'm curious if anyone uses terracotta wine coolers. I don't have one, but have always been intrigued by them. They're soaked in water, then drained and the evaporation has a slight cooling effect on the bottle.

When I was served a mature claret during a heat wave in 1997 at Cordeillan Bages, the sommelier put the decanter in water bowl in which floated a few lumps of ice; it did the job very well.

The next day at a restaurant in Saint-Julien, the claret was served at room temperature, 30°C. Ugh!!!! I had it put in an ice bucket until the temperature descended to an acceptable level.

I'm curious if anyone uses terracotta wine coolers. I don't have one, but have always been intrigued by them. They're soaked in water, then drained and the evaporation has a slight cooling effect on the bottle.

I do have one, Howie. I think they do the job pretty well, especially on warm days out on the deck. My problemm is I often forget to soak them long enough before use. I find, too, that if unglazed on the outside and stained with food or something, the stain can be very hard to remove.