You’ve bought a pack of your favorite wine from a wine shop. You’re expecting a party or maybe it’s just for your own consumption. Whatever the case, you’ll need to get them chilled up. You most likely don’t already have a wine refrigerator dedicated to keeping the proper wine temperature at all times. Now, what can you do? You want to have a taste of that rose stat in its cool state.
Serving it at room temperature won’t do the trick. If you put it in the freezer, it could turn out far colder than is ideal and that isn’t good either. For wines like rosés, white wines, and sparkling wines, chilling brings out their lovely aromas and acidity. But when they’re over-chilled, you simply mute their flavors. Red wine, when served too cold, tastes too acidic. That’s not a want.
Do these immediately if you want to cool your wine in no time:
Give It An Icy Saltwater Bath
When you add your regular table salt to a supply of water and have your wine bottle bathed in it, that’s actually the fastest way to chill up your wine. Yes, thanks to science, it’s no longer news that the salt reduces the freezing point of the water to something lower than the 32 degrees Fahrenheit freezing point.
For you to make this work right, you first need an ice bucket, wine bucket, or any other container that can fit the entire wine bottle. You could even use the bathtub or kitchen sink if necessary. Now, fill your desired container with water and add some salt. The salt must be at such a quantity that can bring out the correct temperature for your wine. Don’t forget that it mustn’t be too cold nor too warm.
To speed things up a bit, add ice cubes to the solution and then immerse the wine bottles in the mixture. Wait for about 13 minutes and take out your chilled bottle of wine.
Go ahead and have it.
For a faster cooling result, you can move the bottles around the mixture at intervals of 1-3 minutes. You shouldn’t try this for sparkling wines or champagne because of their explosive nature.
Use The Freezer
While a freezer may not be as quick a cooling agent for your wine as you like it, it will cool the wine anyway. It just won’t be that fast. A tip is to make sure that the bottle lies on its side while in the freezer in order to increase the ratio of the surface area of the bottle that touches the freezer. It will cool it a lot faster than simply standing it.
A good temperature for your wine when using the freezer should be done between 30 minutes to one hour. No more no less.
Even when you don’t plan on cooling your wine, it is still preferable you store it horizontally in order to maintain its moisture, prevent drying and keep it from getting bad early.
Another popular fast chilling method used for wines put in the refrigerator is to open the wine bottle and pour the drink into wine glasses before placing it in the fridge. You will have to cover the cups with plastic wraps in order to seal in the aromas, minimize oxidation, and keep out the fridge odors.
The wine will chill faster because wine glasses are a lot thinner and smaller than their bottle counterparts. It will chill up in one-third of the time it would take an average wine bottle. Where your wine bottle will be ready in about 90 minutes, the glass cup will be out in just 30 minutes for instance.
Try to place the filled glasses on a shelf toward the back of the fridge rather than on the door to keep the glasses from moving or spilling.
Add Few Frozen Grapes
Frozen grapes are an effective and visually attractive way to chill up your wine in just a few minutes. Unlike when you put in ice cubes, frozen grapes won’t dilute your wine and you will still get the benefit of eating them for a little touch of sweetness.
Use grapes that match the type of wine you’re drinking or serving. Use red grapes for red wine and green grapes for white wine.
You’ve seen so many ways to speed up the wine-chilling process. Some are faster than the others but they all work. Rather than take a warm wine — be patient–, in less than 15 minutes you’d have something chilled.
