When the sun beats down hard and the desire for a chilled wine becomes unstoppable, you have no wine in the fridge and little time available, here are three techniques to quickly cool the bottle (and its contents).
How to quickly cool a bottle of white wine or sparkling wine: the three tips from Sommelier Wine Box.
The starting point is this: it takes at least an hour to chill a bottle of wine in the refrigerator. Let's see what to do when you don't have this time available and your guests are about to ring the doorbell.
1. Place the bottle of wine in the ice bucket
If your bottle of wine is not cold but still already cold: fill a bucket with half ice and half cold water , then immerse the bottle.
Cold water and ice will help the bottle cool down quickly. But be careful: the wine inside will still struggle to cool down, so an excellent idea is to serve glasses with small quantities and in the meantime continue to keep the bottle of wine immersed in the bucket with ice.
2. Place the wine bottle in the freezer with a damp cloth
If you're really short on time, wrap the bottle in a damp cloth (or wet kitchen paper) and place it in the freezer . In about 15 minutes you will get a temperature close to the correct one.
If you have a little more time available you can avoid wrapping it in the damp cloth but remember to set the timer or check the bottle periodically to prevent the wine inside from freezing.
3. Dip the wine bottle in a splash of cold water and salt
A middle ground between the two situations, very effective and ready to use, is to fill a bucket with cold water , add several spoons of salt , some ice , and immerse the bottle in the bucket.
Adding salt will lower the freezing point of the water, allowing for faster cooling. Remember to turn the bottle to encourage even cooling.
In this case it takes about 20 minutes to reach the right temperature but you can start serving the first glass even a little earlier. Very useful when your friends are already at home and you need a very quick solution.
Other methods to quickly cool wine
There are other ways to chill wine, some questionable such as adding ice cubes; others are difficult to do such as adding grapes or decanting into frozen bottles (who keeps these things in the freezer?). Finally, there are specific tools to keep in the freezer and insert into the bottle to cool it more quickly, always in association with the ice bucket.
