However, in Portugal, with the advent of tourism and the growing number of visitors to our country, we see more and more people drinking rosé or even white wine with 1 or 2 ice cubes in the glass.
The Portuguese were perplexed at first by this situation, accustomed to giving an almost sacred character to the drinking of their wines. In daily conversations, the criticism is almost always destructive and even ridicules the use of ice: “they don’t know anything about wine”, “they just want to feel the freshness”, or even “for those who drink cheap wine, it doesn’t make much difference”. But are they completely wrong? What about eating cod with white wine? Or charcoal-grilled fish with red wine? Or sardines with white wine?
In all gastronomies we have preconceived ideas that have been passed down through generations and are part of our upbringing. When they are questioned, it’s almost as if the world is turned upside down.
Perhaps a good policy is not to repress, but to educate and then suggest something that allows the consumer to move on to something more in keeping with the full potential of proper consumption of good wine. For example, instead of refusing or saying that we don’t have ice, we could offer a white wine by the glass that has been properly chilled. And suitably chilled doesn’t mean room temperature, it means below room temperature; in other words, if the average temperature for a white wine is 10ºC, you can’t serve it at that temperature in the summer on a terrace. It’s best to serve it at 7ºC because the ambient temperature will raise the temperature of the wine in 10 minutes.
