Q: What’s the best way to quickly bring up the temperature of my red wine? Is a microwave recommended?
A: I rarely use microwaves. Period…and I certainly wouldn’t recommend using it to heat up wine. Some colleagues disagree. Wine columnist Matt Kramer once touted its use and I’ve heard that some winemakers and others use the technique. Sommeliers? You gotta be joking.
Polling twitter and facebook, wine drinkers and experts agreed that microwaving is not the way to go.
Readers, do you agree? What technique do you use to warm up a chilled bottle of red?
For those that use the microwave, could you clue the rest of us in on its usefulness and why you use it?
there is no way this is a good idea for anything, not even mulled wine(the point of mulled wine is to infuse it with the mulling spices, which is best done low & slow) Plus, microwaves vary greatly, so you might have to ruin a few wines before you figure out the best timing & settings to use. Would love to hear from the proponents of this idea. Funny, though.
Wine and Microwaves, Sommelier secret???? It’s a little late for an April’s fool joke ;)
I don’t know any sommelier that use or recomend microwaves.
My idea is that wine should serve a little bit under the right temperature because in the glass the temperature always increase and sometime faster than we want.
I hope this isn’t why the wine we are served in restaurants always seems too warm to me! At home we follow the guideline of taking our whites and roses out of the fridge about 20 minutes before drinking.
Mike K – I’m not even good at experimenting with popcorn in the microwave! I tend to burn it often. ~Pamela
Alex – yup, that Sommelier / Microwave story was quite a shocker. I agree with you about the temp.
Nancy – good advice. It’s much better to allow the wine to gradually warm up slowly…As for restaurants, its probably more like a storage issue than heating it up in a microwave. To be honest, I used to work as a somm in SF and have many friends in the biz and none of us have heard of this microwave technique used in restaurants.