cooling pinot and cabernet in fridge?

chiller...just

Salut/Hi Liam,

le/on Tue, 17 Feb 2004 01:06:11 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

I know this sounds unduly fussy, but it's not a bad solution. No doubt you've got plenty of ice. Why not make up a bit of a water bath in a bucket, at around 65F. The thermal inertia would be considerable. If you put it in a reasonably cool place, you could always keep a steady enough temperature by dropping in another ice cube or two! You would find the wine would cool to temperature reasonably quickly (an hour max).

Much trickier. If the wine is young (purple tinges at the edge) then you should not only open the bottle (which in itself does little to let the wine breathe) but decant it - just pour the contents onto another bottle - ideally an hour or two before you're planning to drink it. As the wine gets older, you may want to decant nearer the drinking time. We've had a thread on this in afw recently. However, not all Cabernet Sauvignons are the same, neither are all Pinot Noirs, and our advice could be more precise if you tell us exactly what the wines are.

The breathing thing is always cause for debate! I've got a number of 5 year old Cab's and Shiraz's that I enjoy with lamb/steak and I can certainly taste the difference if I've allowed them to breate for 30mins/1 hour before serving. As Joe mentioned, the bottle itself is not wide enough to allow good breathing, so I have a proper decanter that exposes a large surface area of the wine to air. Before I had a proper one, I just used a water jug which works just as well. If I'm just using the glass to allow for breathing I always find that the first half of the glass is quite "closed" and enjoy the 2nd half a lot more, but then I pour again and get the same effect - which is why I prefer to decant.

chiller...just

I do not think thermal shock hurts red wine. Try about 5 min in the freezer. Get a thermometer of one type or another.

A lot of reds are drunk too young, and too tannic. Open bottle usually helps. It is a slow way to oxidize the wine.

For a faster way, in Montalchino, the decanter is designed to allow the wine to spiral and swril down the decanter.

At a recent tast>I wish I had one, but I have neither a cool celler nor a wine chiller...just >a fridge.

--SNIP!--

Saisons des Vines "L'automne" by Copain Wines a pinot noir from Mendocino Valley, CA

Casa Lapostolle a cabernet sauvignon from Colchagua Valley, Chile

Thanks for the info! Much appreciated =) Liam

Salut/Hi Liam,

le/on Tue, 17 Feb 2004 15:01:27 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Thanks for filling us in. I don't know this wine at all, so I have to leave it to others much more knowledgeable about Californai PNs to give you some advice.

This one at 5 years old should be beginning to open out now, and I don't think (despite being a Cabernet Sauvignon) that it needs long decanting. Give it an hour or so. So what you could do would be to pour from one bottle to another about an hour (a bit more wouldn't hurt) before drinking, and then put this second bottle (recorked) in your bucket of water until you're ready to drink it. I'd test the water temp every 15 mins until you know how it behaves, btw. As I said, a few ice cubes will soon cool it down.

If you want to be scientific about it, if a bucket can contain 2 galls US (roughly) that's 16 lbs of water. It would probably be about 3/4 full. Call it 12 lbs including the wine. To reduce the temperature from 70°F by 5F° using ice at 20°F you would need to add about half a pound of ice.