snooty snooty toot toot: how open red wine can threaten the entire race and cause large rifts to form in the ozone 1
my mother stayed with us for the holidays and I believe a good time was had by all. among the many conversations was one about my first-cousin once removed. [heh. just wanted to throw that in there: my cousin’s daughter. ]
apparently she was eeked that my mother didn’t refrigerate a bottle of red wine after having opened it. funny how conversations never come up. but i honestly think that was the first time I heard the point raised: i routinely do not finish red wine by myself (how could I?) so I always leave the leftover bottle out.
after a very quick google check it appears that this problem does not come up since most folks drink the whole bottle in one sitting. I have to say, though, that it should just come down to taste: there are no more rules about wine than what tastes right. so it seems that leaving reds at room temperature allows their full flavor to come out. but chilling a cheap red wine might help by killing any icky flavor. the question then becomes whether to serve it a room temperature or not. as for an already-open bottle, however, the answer is: does it taste bad or not? chilling might prolong its life. and I don’t wanna crush your richly-polished worlds, folks (yeah, right!) but in my experience an open red wine does not go bad at room temperature over a week. it gets weaker, sure. but those are two different things. on a slightly other note, this article asks whether it is better to chill red wine when it is really hot or not.
also, it appears that simply opening a bottle does not let the wine breathe. there is just not enough surface air from the small hole. better to use a decanter which, apparently, i need to buy.
sigh.