How to Chill a Bottle of Wine Quickly

By eHow Food & Drink Editor

Rate: (6 Ratings)

Forgot to refrigerate the wine before dinner? No sweat. Here's a simple and fast solution.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

Ice Buckets

Step1

Fill a bucket with ice and cold water.

Step2

Submerge the bottle up to its neck in the bucket.

Step3

Remove after 20 minutes.

Tips & Warnings

Many people put wine in the freezer to chill it quickly. Although this works, it can be tough on more delicate wines.
It takes 2 hours to chill a bottle in the refrigerator and a bit more than 1 hour in ice alone.
White wines, champagnes and rosé wines (which have a pink color) are commonly served chilled. Red wines are served at room temperature, although if it's hot out, you might chill the wine in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes, then leave it on the counter for 10 minutes to warm up.

Comments

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 Crush some ice, put it in a bucket, and pack it around the wine bottle. Then sprinkle it with a lot of salt. (Best - 23% salt by weight, 77% ice by weight). This will bring down the melting point of the ice and you can get below 32F very quickly. This is probably the quickest way to chill beer(5 minutes).

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 Add about a 1/4 cup Kosher salt to the ice and water. This will lower the temperature even further. Remember to wipe the bottle dry so the salted water doesn't drip into your guests' glasses.

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 If you do decide to chill the wine in the freezer, set a timer or have the camera ready to photograph what frozen wine looks like when it's pushing up out of the bottle or, worse yet, stuck to a packet of frozen peas. (We did that once, but it took a good while to make it happen.)

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 If you need to chill the wine quickly, wrap the bottle in a wet towel and hold it outside the car window for ten minutes while driving about 30 miles an hour.

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