On the rare occasion I order red wine when my wife and I are out dining, I always jokingly ask her to pass the Sweet'N Low.
There’s an episode of “Who’s the Boss” where the late James Coco plays Tony Danza’s father-in-law, Nick Milano. He’s over one night for a huge Italian dinner Tony has prepared, and proceeds to empty a couple of packets of the artificial sweetener into his red wine as the studio audience groans. (Interesting sidenote: several web sites report the day after this episode aired, Coco died).
OK, I’m not a wine snob. My wife is the wine expert in the house. But even I know you don’t put Sweet'N Low in red wine.
And you don’t serve red wine chilled, right?
Wrong.
That old rule of thumb apparently is not set in stone.
Slate.com reports some of the best summer wines are chilled reds.
Mike Steinberger, Slate's wine columnist writes:
”Admittedly, the idea of plunging a bottle of red wine into an ice bucket, or tossing it into the refrigerator, is counterintuitive and may even strike some people as vaguely sacrilegious: We generally think of red wines as beverages that exist to warm us up on winter nights, not cool us off on summer days. In fact, though, a chilled red offers all the thirst-quenching qualities of a good rosé and a lot more substance. It will also pair better with a cheeseburger, which is no minor consideration this time of year.
Like many Americans, I first encountered this seemingly heretical practice in France. As soon as the temperatures in Paris turn balmy, the bistros, brasseries, and cafes start putting a little chill into the carafes of vin rouge, at which point the wines assume a dual purpose: They complement your food and they refresh you.
The problem with chilling heavier, more structured wines is that it often makes the tannins more pronounced. True, it can also mask the alcohol just a bit, which is no bad thing in this era of Smirnoff-like Shirazes and Zinfandels, but along with the reduced heat, you might well suffer momentary lockjaw on account of the tannins. Even so, when I was in France's Rhone Valley during an epic heat wave several years ago, the Saint-Josephs I ordered (Saint-Josephs are wines from the northern Rhone composed either entirely or principally of Syrah) were all served chilled—and the added astringency was, I had to admit, a small price to pay for the refreshment.
Chilling wines does not mean freezing them. The ideal serving temperature is somewhere between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit—which, as it happens, is the ideal storage temperature for wines (both reds and whites). Fifteen minutes in an ice bucket, or 15 to 30 minutes in the fridge, is usually all it takes to get a red wine to the optimal temperature and to put a strangely attractive sheen of condensation on the bottle. Anything longer is going to mute the fruit and accentuate the structure. The goal is to cool the wine down just enough to make it revitalizing, not to turn it into sludge.”Here is the entire
column.So, go ahead and cool down that red wine. Just 86 the Sweet'N Low.
PREVIOUS CULINARY NO-NO’S1) Ketchup on a brat
2) Green peppers on pizza
3) The dirty martini
4) Fruity brats
5) A Bloody Mary after dinner
6) Women “manning” the grill
7) Eating pizza at Festa Italiana, brats at German Fest, or tacos at Fiesta Mexicana. (Be adventurous. You can have those items anytime).
8) Eating a cream puff as though it was a hamburger.
9) Taking your own bottle of sauce when invited to a barbecue.
10) Touching the grill if you’re a guest at an outdoor barbecue.
11) Coaching the host on how to grill.
12) Some regional flavored ice cream…..like black licorice.
13) Taking the husks off before you grill corn on the cob
