Have you ever had this happen to you? You get a knock on your door; it’s your neighbors. You offer them to come in, your visiting for a while then you happen to look at the clock. It’s time for supper so you ask them to stay while you know in the back of your head you haven’t the foggiest idea what you’ll fix. In the mean time you would like to offer them a glass of wine but you don’t have any chilled, what do you do! Here is a fast any easy way of chilling wine plus there is a way of never being caught with your wine hot.
The only thing you have to have is a bucket, ice, and salt. Fill your bucket with cold water add ice and salt. Immerse your wine bottle in the bucket and wait. If you have ever made homemade ice cream, remember the salt and ice you poured around the outside of the cylinder? Well this is the same kind of method for chilling wine like you did your ice cream.
Don’t forget about your wine while you are trying to come up with that perfect fast meal. If you have a bottle of red wine on ice then it will require you to probably time it. Red wines can chill in 2 to 3 minutes depending on the amount of ice and salt you have in the bucket. Red wines should be served around the 54 degree range so it is very important to check it after 2 minutes, if need be, put it back in the bucket for another minute.
If you have a white wine immersed in the bucket, this can take longer than red wine; white wine needs to be served at a colder temperature. In order to chill white wine in a bucket with water, ice and salt like you did the red wine, you should make the water colder by adding more of ice and salt. To get the white wine at the right temperature for serving let it sit in the bucket for 20 to 30 minutes.
If for some reason you happen to forget about the wine, don’t worry. If the wine you chilled is red than just let it set out on the counter while you are preparing the meal. It will quickly come to the perfect temperature in a minute or two. If you are chilling white wine then it’s okay. Remember white wine should be served chilled but not to the freezing point.
Make sure you wash the wine bottle off before you serve your guests. You don’t want them seeing any of the salt that may have stuck to the sides of the bottle!
If order to not get caught with hot wine; the most common method is to chill wine in the refrigerator. But if you are like me, you forget to put the wine in the refrigerator when you have drunk the last bottle. What ever you do, don’t put your wine bottle in the freezer. Freezers and wine just do not mix. You will have ice wine and it’s not very good. Take my word for it!
The all out best method of chilling wine is to purchase a wine frig. This frig is made just for wine. The shelves are curved to hold wine bottles on there sides. They even come where you can put your red wine bottles on the bottom racks and your white wine bottles on the top racks. The red wine bottles will not be as cold as the white wine bottles.
If by chance the red wine does seem a bit cold for your taste then remember you can let it set out on the counter for a few minutes. You never want to serve a wine to cold, especially if you are serving it with food. You want to be able to taste the blends of the wine not just your food. You want your wine to complement your dish that you are serving.
Here is a good rule of thumb for the right temperature for wine chilling.
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White Wines chill between 45 and 50 degrees.
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Red Wines chill between 50 and 65 degrees.
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Rose Wines chill between 45 and 55 degrees.
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Sparkling Wines between 42 and 52 degrees.
Wine, your, ice, red, white wine
