Lazy Hostess | How to Quickly Chill Wine

It can happen, even to the best of us.  Your food is prepped, your table set but, as your guests arrive, you realize that your wine has not been chilled.  Don’t get your apron in a bunch, the Lazy Hostess has picked up an insider tip on how to chill wine in a flash.

To begin, fill a bucket 3/4 of the way with ice.  Add enough cold water to cover the ice and then add 1/4 cup of salt.  Stir the mixture and place the wine in the bucket.  In 25 minutes, your bottle should be cold enough to serve.  Make sure that you carefully wipe all of the salt off the bottle before pouring it for your guests.

Think it’s magic? Here’s the scoop (to impress your guests further): in order to chill the wine, the heat in the bottle has to be transferred to its surroundings.  Since liquids are better than gases (air) at transferring heat, a bottle sitting in water with ice cools faster than if you put it in the freezer.  Simply put, the water cools the bottle, the ice cools the water and the salt lowers the overall temperature.

Observation: the better the wine, the faster the consumption and the greater the need for chilling additional bottles.  No scientific explanation needed there!