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It's high time we faced up to an important truth: It's not just our planet that is getting perilously warm; so is our beer.

For this critical public service message we can thank the good people at the Molson Coors Brewing Co., who aren't just fretting about the issue, they're taking action.

Coinciding with summer's official start, the company last week launched a new beer can embossed with a temperature-sensitive ink that lets consumers know when it's safe to crack open the lid and have a drink.

Available only on the product's iconic "Silver Bullet" can in Canada (Coors has been test-marketing a similar technology for glass in the U.S., which it has dubbed the Cold Activated Bottle), the ink is applied on the outside to the M-shaped mountain logo and the trademarked words "Cold Certified."

When the beer inside reaches 4 degrees Celsius, or lower, the ink turns from grey-white to blue.

"Consumers have told us that colder beer is better beer," says Rob Morrell, senior brand manager for Coors Light, the bestselling light beer in the country.

Other, more obscure products using "thermochromatic" technology have been launched in select markets in the past, but Molson says its new proprietary ink is the first on a major scale and, more important, the first to provide what Mr. Morrell describes as clear colour definition as well as the right time delay, so that not just the metal can but all the fluid in the centre reaches the "easy-drinking" refreshment threshold.

"Sometimes," says Mr. Morell, "it's tough to know when your beer is cold enough."

The new Coors Light package, which has been rolling out unofficially for several weeks, has already met with positive appraisal from consumers, Mr. Morrell adds. Mass-appeal beverages like Coors Light, brewed first and foremost to be refreshing, do in fact benefit from maximum chilling.

But it's not so straightforward with other, more nuanced beers such as British-style ales and, more importantly, wines, which most Canadians tend to serve at taste-distorting temperatures.

As a general rule, we serve whites too cold and, worse, reds too warm. No wine - repeat: no wine - should be served at room temperature, which in Canada is a flavour-busting 21 C (and much higher in many homes in summer).

But knowing a little wine chemistry can add much more pleasure to your wine-sipping experience. So, let me introduce Gary Pickering, professor of wine science at Brock University.

Prof. Pickering notes that the most conspicuous effect of chilling is to heighten the palate's sensitivity to acidity. This is why we chill whites in the first place - to accentuate their most prized feature, refreshment. It's also why we serve dessert wines cold, to amplify their acidity to balance out the sugar.

But why stop at whites?

Rule No. 1: "you have a flabby red wine, cool it," Prof. Pickering says. In particular, cheap Australian and Californian reds, come on down! Ten or 20 minutes in the fridge will help them taste drier and more lively.

If you can't wait, do as some pros do. Ask the waiter for ice, drop a cube into your glass and swirl for a minute, then remove it if you prefer.

But not all reds are equally flattered by the wine-on-the-rocks treatment, and things get a little more complicated in the case of more refined, expensive bottles.

For example, chilling produces the unwanted effect of exacerbating astringency, a mouth-parching quality mainly associated with expensive, fuller-bodied reds high in tannins - compounds found in grape skins, seeds and oak barrels.

Typically, the tannins in young European wines tend to be more pronounced and astringent than those in New World wines from California or Australia. Which brings me to the next rule.

Rule No. 2: Serve Aussie shirazes and California merlots cooler than you would most European reds, such as red Bordeaux and Barolo.

Another reason to chill these wines slightly is to offset the potential burn from alcohol, another volatile chemical that tends to be higher in wines from hot, sunny regions such as California, Chile and most of Australia. Served too warm, "the fruity, floral notes won't come through because the alcohol will be dominating that aroma," Prof. Pickering says.

Rule No. 3: Chill wines you believe may be slightly "off" (but, of course, not so off that you find them undrinkable). If you detect an unpleasant, pungent whiff, it could be a so-called aromatic fault.

The most common is volatile acidity, a reek produced by stray bacteria (or sometimes yeast) reminiscent either of vinegar or nail polish remover. Again, these faults tend to be exacerbated at higher temperatures, Prof. Pickering says, so chill the wine to tame the effect.

I can hear some of you protesting. Some people contend that, flaws aside, a good and properly made wine should always be served at room temperature because higher temperatures help bring out pleasant aromas and flavours.

Only partly true. When you serve a wine straight from the fridge, in general the aroma intensity is subdued, along with some of the flavour, which is carried to the palate via the nose.

As Prof. Pickering colourfully puts it, "more of the wine's aroma and flavour aroma molecules are in the head space above the glass as you increase the temperature. So, you're literally getting more goodies there to actually perceive when you smell the wine as it's served warmer." And that, in fact, is the reason you should serve complex white wines, such as pricey chardonnays, at slightly warmer-than-fridge temperature.

Unfortunately, however, the heat cuts both ways when it comes to perfectly made wine. Certain prized volatile esters - the compounds that most notably produce floral aromas - will blow off more quickly at higher temperatures, Prof. Pickering says. "And often it's those low molecular weight compounds that add a lot of the nuances that we look for in a complex wine."

In other words, much of what you paid for in that prized Volnay will be lost to the wind.

Where does Prof. Pickering stand on the controversial wine-on-the-rocks question?

As it happens, he earned his PhD for developing a new process to make low-alcohol wines. During the course of that research, Prof. Pickering experimented with diluting finished wine with water, a practice common in the production of low-alcohol beer as well as regular-strength spirits.

"I was just curious to see how much flavour dilution there would be by adding water or adding ice cubes to wine. And it's quite surprising. There's almost no change in perceived aroma intensity when you put an ice cube in. You have to add a surprisingly large amount of water before you get a difference in perceived flavour intensity, at least for most consumers."

I rest my case.

bcrosariol@globeandmail.com

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Chilling suggestions

Recommended serving temperatures (in degrees Celsius) for popular wine styles:

Icewine: 6

Sparkling wine: 7

Sauvignon blanc, pinot grigio: 8

Chardonnay, viognier: 9

Beaujolais, gamay: 12

Pinot noir, chianti, zinfandel: 16

Australian shiraz, California cabernet: 17

Red Bordeaux: 18

Port: 19

Room temperature: 21

Beppi Crosariol