How to chill wine to the perfect temperature in just 15 minutes

Virgin Radio

18 Aug 2021, 15:12

Forgetting to refrigerate a bottle of wine is annoying, isn’t it? It leaves you with the choice of either putting it in the fridge and waiting forever for it to cool, risk it exploding in your freezer, or just opening the darn thing and pretending you’re enjoying drinking moderately disgusting, room temperature white wine on a hot summer’s day.

Now though, a woman from Brisbane, Australia, has come up with a life hack that means you can chill wine in just 15 minutes. In a simple, 20-second video on her home.with.leanne Instagram account, the woman simply adds ice and two tablespoons of salt to a bowl of water, and then puts the bottle of wine in it for 15 minutes. 

The science behind this seemingly simple action is that the freezing point of water is lowered by salt, meaning the ice will melt at a lower temperature than usual, leading to the water in which the wine is sitting being cooler. 

Captioning the video, Leanna said: “Who decides which wine is kept in the fridge or on the shelf at the bottle store? Unlucky for me my wine is sold on the shelf. I suppose what do you expect for a $5 bottle of wine.”

The video has been watched thousands of times, with wine-drinking commenters loving the simple hack. One person described it as “Life changing”, while someone else called it a “fab tip.” 

Other Instagram commenters, however, suggested that a better solution is wetting some paper towel and wrapping it around the bottle of wine, before placing it in the freezer. The thinking behind this is that the paper towel means the bottle is less likely to explode than if you bung it straight in the freezer.

Regardless of how you overcome the room temperature wine issue (our tip: just buy red wine instead), Leanne’s Instagram account is definitely worth a look, as she shares other tips, including how to stop a rug from moving, and home hacks to keep your oven clean.

You can check out her Instagram here.