When I was working with enthusiastic newbies at my old wine bar, one of the persistent myths I'd have to dispel time and again went something like this:
If you buy a chilled wine and it comes up to room temperature, you can't re-chill it! That change of temperature ruins the wine!
Where did this idea come from? This myth simply doesn't make sense to me. Of course, I can see why you wouldn't want a wine to undergo rapid temperature change, but any well-made wine can withstand room temperatures after being chilled. Even multiple times. An internet search turned up no relevant papers on this simple topic, so I asked an old colleague of mine - the U.C. Davis-trained Winemaker, Alison Crowe, who had this to say about that...
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Winemaker Alison Crowe[/caption]
"Oi! There is no real reason [a wine can't be chilled and then warmed] as long as the change is not dramatic (think 45 F-110 F!) or sudden (in 30 minutes!) there is no real reason to call a bottle "defunct" if it's been chilled to serving temp from room or cellar temp even a few times.
It's all a continuum of time, temp and duration. There's no doubt that a bottle can be compromised w/ high temperatures - sitting around in the back of one's trunk in the middle of summer. Cold is less damaging. But wide swings, and many of them over time, can wrench a wine's chemistry back and forth continually....and that may be negative for some wines. But twice!? I wouldn't hesitate."
Thanks Alison! Please note, her advice does not apply to wines that have been popped in the freezer for a quick chill, only to be forgotten - an instant-gratification technique that can lead to ruinous results (photo at top).
An average refrigerator maintains a temperature of about 38 degrees. A bottle of room-temperature wine (70-ish degrees) placed in such an environment begins chilling at a rate of about one degree every ten minutes. At that rate of change, a bottle taken from a 70 degree room and placed in the refrigerator won't attain cellar temperature (let's say, 55 degrees) for two hours and ten minutes - a rate of change far more gradual than the one Alison warns about.
So feel free to take that excess wine out of your refrigerator to free up some space. As long as your storage area is dark and not subject to drastic temperature swings - your wine will be fine!
Cheers!
Dave the Wine Merchant
866-746-7293
www.DaveTheWineMerchant.com
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