How to Chill Wine Quickly in Desperate Times – 7 Tips & Tricks

We have all been there, desperate for a glass of perfectly chilled wine or bubbles yet ‘someone’ forgot to put it in the fridge. You are not alone, it is a highly frustrating situation for us all. Well don’t fret because I have come across some tips and tricks to help us in those desperate times.

1. The wet tea towel trick

I learnt this trick on my trip home to New Zealand this year from my lovely sister-in-law, P. Basically you wet down a tea towel, then you wrap the tea towel around the wine bottle and pop it in the freezer for at least 10 minutes.

This is now my go-to trick, it really does work. No more warm white wine for me!!

2. Use the elements

If you live somewhere cold, particularly where it snows, you’re winning! I learnt this trick when I visited Finland in 2011 for Christmas and New Year. Our friends used the porch as an extra refrigerator.

Absolutely fantastic idea! Plus when you’re making your snow angels between sauna sessions you can pour yourself another vino!

3. For the backpackers & holidayer’s

We have all been there, wanting to save on holiday spending $$ so you decide to get a bottle of wine (or cask or beers or…) to take back to your room yet there is no fridge, freezer or anything of the sort.

This is not the best method at all and the results aren’t so good but in desperate times it will suffice. Simply fill up the sink with the coldest water you can get. Or if the shops sell ice, buy a bag and fill the sink up with it and pop your goodies in! Of course there is also the instance when there is no plug (due to the establishment not wanting you to do something like this or wash clothes in your room!) however I’m sure you can be creative on that one (i.e. jam it with something!).

4. Salt it baby

If you’re only resource is water, like in the above example, then you need to get your hands on some salt! Yep that’s right, when salt is added to water it works just like ice does when added to water. The salt reduces the freezing point of the water which results in the water becoming colder without turning to ice.

5. Who wants to play spin the bottle

This one builds on the previous two. If you can spin the bottle in the water with ice/salt then this will allow more of the contents inside the bottle to come into contact with the chilling glass. However please don’t attempt to do this trick with a bottle of sparkling wine as you could end up with a very large pop and wine shower when you open it!

6. Grape-tastic ice-cubes

Every week make sure you buy a bunch of grapes and pop them straight in the freezer. The frozen grapes will work as ice-cubes when popped into your wine glass without watering it down and destroying the flavour like normal ice-cubes would do! Plus it looks super funky in my opinion!

7. Spread the love

Seeing as I don’t have a dishwasher, well the dishwasher is myself, this tactic is not ideal for people like me. But if you can, pop the contents of a bottle in individual glasses, smaller amounts of liquid cool down quicker than one large mass of liquid. Make sure the maid is working the next day though!!

If anyone else has any tried and tested techniques to help avoid the ‘who didn’t put the wine in the fridge’ argument then please help out the fellow suffering wine drinkers and leave a comment below.