How cold to serve wine, and how long an open bottle keeps
Most whites are served too cold and most reds too warm. This guide gives the right temperature for each kind of wine, how long a bottle takes to reach that temperature, and how many days an opened bottle stays good.
Serving temperature for each wine
| Wine | Serve at | Starting from a shelf at room temperature |
|---|---|---|
| Sparkling | 6–8 °C 43–46 °F | About 2 hours in the fridge |
| Crisp white, rosé | 8–10 °C 46–50 °F | About 2 hours in the fridge |
| Full white, sweet wine | 10–12 °C 50–54 °F | About 2 hours, then out for 10 minutes |
| Light red | 14–16 °C 57–61 °F | About 30 minutes in the fridge |
| Full red | 16–18 °C 61–64 °F | Ready to pour, if the room is cool |
- Why
- Cold hides flavour and warmth exaggerates alcohol. A white straight from a very cold fridge tastes of nothing; a red from a warm kitchen tastes hot and soupy.
- From the fridge
- Take a full red out of the wine fridge about 30 minutes before dinner. Whites and sparkling wine can go straight to the table.
- In a rush
- A bucket of ice and water chills a bottle in about 15 minutes, much faster than the freezer. If you use the freezer, set a timer so the bottle doesn’t freeze.
How long wine lasts after opening
Put the cork or a stopper back in and keep the bottle in the fridge, reds too. Take a red out half an hour before you pour it again.
| Wine | Cork back in | Vacuum pump or gas |
|---|---|---|
| Sparkling | 1–3 days | 2–4 days |
| White, rosé, fino sherry | 3–5 days | 5–7 days |
| Light red | 2–3 days | 5–7 days |
| Full, tannic red | 3–5 days | 7–10 days |
| Port, sweet wine | 2–4 weeks | 3–6 weeks |
- Why
- Air is what turns an open bottle flat and then sour. Tannin, sugar and alcohol all slow the change, which is why a big red or a Port outlasts a delicate white.
- How to tell
- Smell the wine. If the wine smells of vinegar, nail polish or a bruised apple, use it for cooking or pour it away. A wine that tastes flat but smells clean is still fine for a sauce.
- Coravin
- A needle-through-the-cork system like Coravin keeps most still wines good for one to three months, because the cork stays in and closes up again. Whites last a little longer than reds, and a dry, crumbly cork may not close as well.
CruSense keeps count for you. Mark a bottle as opened and say how you closed it, and the app shows which day the bottle is on. Each bottle’s page also shows its serving temperature, and whether the bottle needs chilling where you store it. See how CruSense works.