Tell the wine snobs enjoying a cool red wine from the fridge is simply observing tradition

THE resistance to chilling red wines is at best conservative — and is arguably centuries out of date.

Put it this way: we’re usually told to serve reds at “room temperature”. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself which room they had in mind when they coined that phrase?

Our wine traditions are inherited from centuries past, times when both climate and home comforts were significantly different to today’s conditions. The growing taste for wine and the money to pay for it went hand-in-hand with the growth of the British empire when Cognac, Port and Claret became the drinks du jour.

On April 10, 1663, Samuel Pepys writes in his diary about this really good new wine from Bordeaux called Haut Brion. ... But in the same pages, he writes about going ice-skating on the Thames in what we now know as a mini-ice age.

They were drinking their wine stone cold, and in rooms far colder than our double-glazed centrally-heated hotboxes. And it didn’t do them a blind bit of harm. So if you’re challenged about popping the red in the fridge, just say you’re observing tradition.

Yes, there are some legitimate reasons to pour your red wine at a slightly higher temperature than your whites. But there is nothing to stop you enjoying a cool red.

The temperature of your bottle as you take it out of the fridge is only temporary (see panel) and will do it no harm.

I suspect that much of the current fuss about wine temperature is rooted in that branch of abnormal psychology called wine snobbery.

Where it’s all about keeping up appearances and the dominant aroma is Hyacinth Bouquet.

Down the years I’ve developed a taste for cool reds — and not just the lighter ones. But I do emphasise that it’s all down to personal taste.

When it comes down to you and your glass of wine, what suits you best is the way to go. And if anyone has a problem with that, tell them to put a cork in it.