Cooling Off in the Summer
by Beatrice Barber
St. Supéry Entertaining Maven

The recent heat wave has announced the arrival of summer here in the Napa Valley.  Fortunately, we had some nicely chilled Virtú to cool us off!

To truly experience a wine’s aroma and flavor it needs to be served at the proper temperature.  If it is too cold, you will loose the beautiful fruit flavors and the wine will appear more acidic. We recommend serving St. Supéry Virtú at approximately 48 – 55 degrees F.

If you chill your white wines in the refrigerator for abut 4 hours and remove them 20 minutes prior to service they should be at the correct temperature.  The best method to chill a bottle in a hurry is to immerse it in an ice bath consisting of half water and half ice. The wine will chill much faster that if using just ice and will be ready to go in about 15 – 20 minutes.  Leave sweet or sparkling wines in the ice bucket for an additional 15 minutes.

If you need a chilled glass of wine quickly, adding ice cubes to it is not recommended. The wine will quickly chill but as the ice melts, the wine will be diluted and the flavors lost.  A little trick that I use to chill a single glass of wine is to keep frozen insulated plastic mugs in my freezer.  When I want a glass of white wine and do not have a chilled bottle in the refrigerator, I just pour some room temperature wine into a frozen mug, leave it in there until it is chilled to my liking and then transfer the wine to a wine glass.  This is very efficient and my wine is not diluted.

Happy summer, stay cool and enjoy St. Supéry Virtú!