What to do when you have forgotten to chill the wine for your party or when friends drop around unexpectedly and you don’t have something already chilled….

There are plenty of tips on the internet for how to chill wine down quickly, which ones really work? And…. which ones are practical?

Don’t forget, different wines require different serving temperatures. Please read: Hot tip! What is the best temperature for serving white wine! to find out more.  There is quite a difference in getting your wine quickly to 10-12^oC versus 6 ^oC. So maybe your Chardonnay doesn’t need to be as cold to serve compared to your Prosecco.

Tip 1: The Best – Go Traditional – Use an ice bucket…

This method is tried and tested, it works and is reliable. Of course, there are ways to make this method work quicker for you. To speed it up, you should use about 50% cold water and 50% ice and fill the single bottle bucket up to about 2/3 the way up the bottle.

This works well.

How to chill it even faster? If you can lay your unopened wine bottle down into the ice and water and totally submerge it, your wine will be chilled in up to 10 minutes. A rectangular bucket or plastic container is probably needed. You can then use an ice bucket where the bottle is vertical to keep the wine chilled.

Tip 2: Go freezy – Put your wine in the freezer…

This also works. BUT don’t forget your wine. Wine will freeze. If it is a sparkling wine, it is likely to also explode in your freezer. A frozen wine will lose its bright flavours too and will taste a bit duller.

How long a wine is safe in the freezer will depend on your freezer temperature. At -15^oC some recommendations are no more that 25-30 minutes. Obviously, a lower temperature will chill quicker.

Even better… have a wine bottle frozen jacket in your freezer for emergencies. These gel filled covers will slip over the bottles and can chill your wine down and you don’t need to worry about freezing your wine.

What about the towel wrapping method? There is plenty of sites recommending wrapping a wet teatowel or cloth around the wine bottle. However, it seems that this method is meant to work with a commercial freezer with air circulation and is not really much quicker in home freezers.

Tip 3: Go direct – Ice cubes in your wine glass

This does work in chilling down your wine relatively quickly. However, in doing so you will dilute your wine with water. This may not bother you much. Of course, that will change the flavour of your wine. Particularly, if the water in the ice cube is not filtered and has a strong flavour or smell.

It may be better to chill your glass. Particularly your sparkling wine flute if you are serving sparkling white wine and it is a hot day.

What about frozen stones? Yes, these will work and you will have no water diluting your wine.