I've always served Pinot/Burgundy wines at a temperature slightly less than room temp, but haven't tried this with other reds. With whites, I've often felt that a lot of wine drinkers over chill them, thereby closing down the wine and eliminating a lot of the subtle flavors present. What does everyone else do?

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I agree that whites are almost always overchilled....

However, I will guess that unless you live in Canada and dont use heating then reds at only slightly below RT is just too warm....

Should reds in fact be that much cooler? I've found a consensus amongst wine people out here in SAN that a few degrees seems to be correct.

Just what is meant by "room temperature"?

60 degrees F? 65 degrees F? 75 degrees F?

Time of year and the setting for AC or heating will affect whether or not you can serve the wine as is or whether chilling it for 30 minutes or so in the fridge is necessary.

Since it's a matter of taste, experiment with it.

room temp around here seems to be in the low 70's, so i have had good luck serving at around 67-69 degrees for reds. i tried pulling some reds out of the wine fridge and letting them warm to maybe 60-63 degrees but the wines just didn't taste right.

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Amen!!

UCBeau, try this fun little experiment and take no one elses word for it.

Chardonnay (or any white):

Take out of fridge (and leave it out), open, taste. Then wait 30 minutes. Poor, taste. Then wait another 30 minutes, poor taste. By the 60 minute mark the condensation is almost gone and the Chardonnay is slightly cooled. Then figure out what temp you like it better at.

Red:

Take out of wine fridge @ 56 degrees. Open the bottle (as it works same way and decants at the same time) taste a little, wait 30 minutes as it warms to closer to 60 degrees and taste again and then again another 30 minutes where it's likely to be room temp.

So IMHO, you will then figure out how you like your temp. I know where I like mine, but not everyone is the same. As the wines warm up, the fruit and flavor characteristics change (However 80 degrees is too hot). IE: For whites, if it's really cold, you'll barely get any, you'll get acidity, sweetness, etc but likely little fruit.

PDXOutbound, thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a whirl (or swirl) tonight!

decent red burg and beau taste best to me at about 65-70F. good white burg,Riesling and chard 60F.chablis &white Bordeaux a bit colder to bring out the flint or tart 55F. hearty reds and fruit bombs, 70-75. dry champagne downright cold. most sweet(port,Sauternes,beerenauslaser) at rt.

For red burgundies and pinot noir I prefer cooler temperatures of around 60-61 degF. This is especially important for the high-alcohol pinots, which I do not drink much of. It is pleasant to enjoy how a good pinot/burgundy's aromas opens up in the glass for the duration of the event/dinner. If one starts out a bit too warm (68-70 deg), I think you miss some of the delicate aromatics that can get overshadowed by stronger volatile aromas.

For Bordeaux/Merlot/Cabernets, I let it have a wider range, but generally below 68. It depends on the age of the wine (decanting and aerating considerations) and the style of the wine.

For crispy, acidic whites, 50-55degrees works for me.

i think you and i have similar preferences then, those temps are what i prefer and tend to serve wine at..the only differences are that i prefer sauternes/barsac/tokaj at 65 or so, but that could be the wrong temp to be tasting them at. port for me should be near room temp, maybe a couple of degrees cooler. also the big bold reds sometimes confound me, have you ever tried a zin that's around 63-67? i've had them like that a few times and they seem to show more structure, despite them being known fruit-bombs.

speaking of decanters & decanting..... one of the most common mistakes that folks make when decanting is that they forget service temperature.... say you have the wine in a service refrigerator/cooler at the optimal temp - but you then decant and place it on some counter or dinner table... more often than not, the wine adjusts to 'room temperature' and that is almost always not the ideal service temp.....

The cheaper the wine, the colder it should be!

"Room Temperature" is 20c. That is too warm for red. I don't know what my preferred temp is by degree, but I bet it is around 60 or a touch higher.

so you either have to chill the decanter or figure out some other way to get those hour or hours to pass by while the wine opens up but doesn't get too warm to drink.

You mean you don't put the Lafite decanted into the freezer?