Wednesday 17 June 2015

When Can You Add Ice to Wine?

There’s nothing better than an ice-cold drink on a scorching hot day. With summer just around the corner, the Ideal Wine Company felt inspired to ask; when can you add ice to wine?

Striking a balance

You need to be very careful when you pair something with wine. The wrong match can offset the subtle balance of flavours that characterise this complex drink and ruin your favourite vintage.
Let’s take the popular pairing of wine and cheese as an example. There are certain rules you should follow when pairing wine with cheese if you want to ensure the vintage in question is cast in the best light. One rule, for instance, demands that you contrast salty with sweet; the saltier the cheese, the sweeter the wine needs to be to make a good match.

Follow storage guidelines

We can apply the same logic to pairing ice and wine. You should always think about how a particular match will affect the flavours of the wine, so you should keep in mind when using ice that it melts, watering down the power of your chosen bottle.

Apart from this, we would say that there are some instances where it’s OK to pair ice with wine; where doing so can even enhance the flavour of your drink. Use the Ideal Wine Company’s guidelines for storing wine as a rule of thumb. You’re supposed to chill white and rose, but you should store red somewhere warm. Translation; you can add ice to a white or a rose (especially for a spritzer), but you should never couple it with red, as the result would offend your taste buds.

Social conventions

There’s one final element we need to discuss here; wine snobbery. There are certain social conventions that have developed over time to govern how people drink wine and this has created an elitist attitude towards what is an acceptable match for the world’s oldest tipple. These conventions abhor the pairing of ice with wine.

Personal preference


Ultimately, it’s a matter of preference. If you feel like plonking a few ice cubes into your glass of dry white go ahead. However we would advise you to refrain from pairing ice with reds such as the Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1978. You should also remember that people may look at you a little strangely if you add blocks of frozen water to wine; it’s simply not done.