Protect your wine from summer’s heat

Most often when we talk about temperature and wine it’s about the temperature wine is served at. As we finally head into the warmth of summer, that’s one issue, but there are others connected to temperature, too.

Let’s start with wine temperature, which is really very important. Forget the wine nerds and silly websites that tell you this wine should be served at 16.5 C and that one at 18 C. All you need to know is that white should be chilled, but not as cold as fridge temperature, while red should feel cool in your mouth, but not chilled.

This is important because you can’t taste wine if it’s too cold, and it takes on a soupy, thick texture when it’s too warm.

If you’re drinking inside where it’s cool, no more problem in summer than any other time of the year. But if you’re drinking outside, and don’t want to keep running in to refill your glass, what do you do?

The easiest method is to keep the wine in an insulated bin, but you can also use an ice bucket or other container. Fill it with ice cubes and water, and add the bottles of wine. The water is important; the ice cools the water, and the water has contact with the bottles.

Kept there too long, wine will get too cold, so you’ll have to pull the bottles out now and again, especially as the level of wine in the bottle drops. Doing this won’t affect the wine.

It’s usual to chill white and rosé wines, but you can chill many reds, too, especially lighterbodied reds such as many pinot noirs and gamays. A lot of inexpensive Italian wines made from sangiovese and other varieties can be light enough to chill, but I wouldn’t take it too far with heavier reds.

Don’t fill wine glasses. The wine in the glass will warm up quickly, so what’s cool at first sip might be warm and nasty when you finish it 30 minutes later. Pour small amounts more frequently.

Don’t take in too much alcohol. Drink non-alcoholic beverages, too, because alcohol and summer heat don’t go too well together. The generally accepted reason is that heat increases thirst but also increases fluid loss. If you consume only alcoholic drinks, which tend to be diuretic, you can dehydrate while taking in alcohol. It’s not a great combination and can lead to premature intoxication and headaches.

Finally, it’s a good idea to look for lower-alcohol wines for the summer.

Overall, whites and rosés have less alcohol than reds, but you can find many reds around 12.5per cent alcohol.

I’ll pick some out for summer columns.