ICE, ICE, BABY!
My friend sent me a picture of a wine she was drinking simply saying, “Is this good?” I quickly replied, you mean the $100 bottle of wine you’re indulging in right now? She texted back, “I guess I shouldn’t have put ice in it?” Two days later, I’m at a dinner with a group of friends, and not one BUT FOUR ladies threw ice in their wine. I had to take a picture. Apparently, my friends are not the wine snobs that I am.
Its kinda like when you renovate your kitchen and you decide to put an ice dispenser on the outside of the fridge.WITH THREE KIDS. Obviously, that was a brilliant parenting decision. I spend more time slipping on ice in the kitchen than blogging. My son, who’s four has learned the art of ice dispensing as a super hero, Batman, specifically. That’s his correlation, or how he describes the ice dispensing system he uses. My six year old daughter, little miss T, is distraught by the new ice machine. It is loud and furious and the poor ice needs to be saved. Batman needs to save the ice, people! Batman will not bring ice to your wine glass however, he has his limits.
Back to the wine–when you put ice in your wine you are diluting it with water, which in turn dilutes the flavors and aromas. The winemaker has gone to great lengths (from start to finish) to perfect that wine. Water (AKA ice) completely destroys the PH level in the wine. Without getting too technical, and you know that I am dying to get technical so I consider the following explanation with a very high level of self-control, the level of PH is significant to winemaking and effects the acidity in the wine. Basically you’re destroying the wine with the ice. I’m sad for the wine.
The best way to chill a wine quickly is fill a container (ice bucket, anything really) with ice, water and SALT. It is essentially a wine bath that will chill the wine within ten minutes, or throw the bottle in the freezer for ten minutes. There is also a gadget. Isn’t there always a gadget? My hubby just picked one up from Williams Sonoma for me, it is Wand Chillers, they come in a packet of two, live in the freezer and you basically put the silver wand in your glass, and it brilliantly, perfectly and flawlessly chills the wine glass. No. More. Ice. For.You.
