Listen, if you prefer your white wine near-freezing and your red at room temperature, then that’s how you should drink it. There’s no shame in bending the rules to suit your taste, but a few small adjustments to your wine-buying, storage and serving routine could open those bottles up.
Winemakers, sommeliers and other professionals spend their lives considering the best wines and the best ways to serve them. One I spoke to thinks the average imbiber is probably serving their wine at suboptimal temperatures if the goal is to release the full expression of a red, white or rosé.
To gather basic wine tips and bad habits to curb, I chatted up Jerry Chandler, a wine consultant and the general manager of The Bohemian Wine Bar in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Chandler called out five common mistakes that even experienced wine drinkers make — from serving at the wrong temperature to aggressive cork removal — and explained how a few small changes can make a big difference.
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1. Drinking wine at the wrong temperature
We tend to drink white wine straight out of the refrigerator and red wine right off the counter, but both could benefit from coming a little more toward the center for an ideal serving temperature. Neither ice-cold white wine nor too-warm red wine can effectively express their aromatic compounds. The flavors of white wine are more dynamic in the 40s or 50s (Fahrenheit, that is) and red wines in the 50s or 60s.
Pro tip: Put red wine in the fridge briefly before serving
To achieve this, “it’s OK to put red wine in the fridge for 10 or 15 minutes, just to get it a little bit cooler,” Chandler says. Similarly, you can remove your white wine from the fridge 15 to 20 minutes before you intend to serve it, or just chill a room-temperature bottle of white in a bucket of ice water for that same amount of time. “That’s going to give you that temperature that’s going to be in the 40s,” he says, “but it’s not going to be too cold.”
2. Storing it improperly
You don’t have to have a wine cellar or wine collection to heed a few common-sense practices when storing wine. Most wine in the US is consumed within a few hours of purchase, in which case not a lot can go wrong, but even if you’re keeping a bottle for a couple of days to save for a special occasion, “make sure you’re being mindful,” Chandler says, to ensure that whatever wine you have doesn’t become a waste of money due to improper handling.
Light, heat and motion can affect even inexpensive bottles. “You don’t ever want to leave wine where the temperatures will constantly fluctuate,” Chandler says, which can be anywhere that gets direct sunlight at any part of the day. You also don’t want to leave it somewhere where it is constantly going to be moving,” he says, which can disrupt any sediment and affect its flavor.
Leaving a bottle of wine in a vehicle, for example, can expose it to extreme temperatures, both high and low, as well as subject it to excessive movement. The best way to store wine for more than a few hours is on its side in a consistently cool place that doesn’t receive direct sunlight.
3. Popping sparkling wine like an amateur
The pop of a bottle of Champagne or sparkling wine can be festive, but it greatly reduces the bottle’s carbonation and can be downright dangerous. Most sparkling wines are topped with a mushroom-shaped cork and a metal cage, which keeps the cork in place because the bottle’s contents are pressurized.
That cage has another purpose: It can also help you open the bottle safely. It should be unscrewed and loosened, but left in place to help you remove the cork. “You use the sides of the cage to gently grip and twist. That’s going to allow some of the pressure to slowly alleviate from the bottle,” Chandler says. This releases the cork more slowly and in a more controlled manner, preserving more of the carbon dioxide responsible for the bubbles.
“I watch so many people just unscrew the cage and then take the cage off, and I always feel my heart skip a beat because you are allowing that cork to do anything it wishes, including blasting off in any direction, full speed,” Chandler says. “Never remove that cage unless you’re removing it with the cork.”
4. Buying wine based on packaging
There may have been a time when the heaviness of the bottle or the type of closure used were guarantees of a wine’s quality, but that is no longer the case. Along with other alcoholic beverages, wine has evolved to meet the moment, with sustainability and technological improvements creating more diverse packaging options.
“Science has come a long way in preserving wine, especially over the past 20 years,” Chandler says, but some people still hold prejudices about wine sealed with a screw top. (“Stelvin closure” to wine pros.) “You’re not going to want to lay down a bottle for 20 years that has a screw top,” he says, “but for wines that you’re going to drink soon, a screw top is perfectly fine.”
Read more: Ask the Expert: How to Find a Great Wine on a Budget
Many wine producers are reducing bottle weight as they roll out sustainability initiatives, and some major wine reviewers are refusing to rate wines whose bottles exceed a certain weight. Both canned and boxed wine are also increasing in quality, as those packages are increasingly championed for their sustainability measures. Basically, wine has entered its “don’t judge it by its cover” era.
5. Never leaving your comfort zone
There are literally thousands of wine grape varieties, not to mention wine producers, yet most of us tend to drink the same few bottles on repeat. Because of the way wine is distributed in the US, it’s difficult to find producers whose wines are consistently available from store to store. Or to find a bottle you loved at a restaurant on your local retail shelves. A lot of us tend to drink the same mass-produced brands and familiar grapes because we can always find them.
This, too, is a mistake: It gets you the least value for money, doesn’t tell you what’s actually in your bottle, and limits your palate. “With mass-produced wines, I always think about what else is in there to keep them at that same consistent flavor profile,” Chandler says. (Hint: it’s more than just grapes.) Anything that has the kind of marketing budget for major advertising tends to represent wine made in conference rooms rather than in vineyards.
It can be understandably hard to branch out. “When I first started learning wine, I only wanted to drink certain things because I didn’t want to spend the money and risk it,” Chandler says. Rather than focusing on a few bottles, try to understand the flavor profiles you like, and be willing to engage with wine pros in retail or restaurant settings who can use your preferences to introduce you to new wines. “Wine is an endless experience,” he says, “and we want people to be as excited to try this thing for the first time the way we were.”
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