Do You Refrigerate Blush Wine?

Do you refrigerate blush wine before opening it? Do you keep it chilled afterward? Or perhaps both?

There isn’t a single answer to this problem, but, fortunately for wine lovers, if you follow a few simple rules, you’ll be sipping at the perfect temperature soon.

In this article, we’ll go over how to store wine before and after opening the bottle, the best wine temperatures, and what to do if you need to chill your wine quickly.

Understand The Basics

Given their chemical composition, all wines shouldn’t be refrigerated at the same temperature. Different blush wines, depending on where they’re produced, have different amounts of residual sugar, alcohol, and structure.

All sparkling blush wines have stored carbon dioxide but the typical dry wine doesn’t. It’s not as sweet as other fruitier blush wines. Depending on the components of the wine, low temperatures can mute or amplify its flavor.

When and how you cool your wine is influenced by these factors. But, before we get into the specifics of refrigerating your wine, it’s vital to understand the principles of wine storage before serving it.

Storing Wine

Proper wine storage, regardless of the sort of wine you have, is essential for retaining its quality. It doesn’t matter what temperature you serve your wine at if it goes bad before you ever open it. Keep your blush wine bottles in a cold, dark spot away from direct sunlight. This fact will extend the shelf life of the product and slow the breakdown process.

While owning a wine cellar would be ideal, it isn’t feasible for the majority of people. You can, fortunately, make do with what you have. Consider placing a wine rack in a cooler-than-room-temperature location away from heat and light.

The storage of wine bottles with a natural cork seal on their sides is extremely crucial. This keeps the cork moist and prevents it from drying out and shrinking, which allows bacteria to enter and cause cork taint.

Wine Refrigerators And Freezers

A wine refrigerator, like a wine cellar, would be an excellent storage option. There’s no need to acquire a wine refrigerator unless you have a large collection of wine bottles or the financial means (and room) to do so.

Using a typical fridge freezer might seem like an obvious alternative but it isn’t a great idea. While the taste of the wine might not be affected by severe temperatures, it’s very likely that the bottle will break and your rosé will spill all over the freezer.

When the water in a blush wine is exposed to low temperatures, it freezes and expands. The resulting pressure either pushes the cork out of the bottle or cracks the bottle. Either way, oxygen escapes and your wine will start oxidizing.

If you’re determined to use the freezer, set a 30 minute timer and take your blush wine out of the cooler immediately after it rings. Alternatively, you can use your kitchen refrigerator as long as you follow a few simple temperature-control instructions.

Let’s go over some basic instructions to help chill your wine easily.

Always plan in advance. Refrigerate your bottles and take them out an hour or two before dinner. The optimal temperature for a refrigerator is between 35 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit. If you have chilly patches where your lettuce always freezes, they’ll help chill your wine a little faster. In terms of time, chilling bottles in the door won’t make a difference.

The Fastest Way To Chill Wine

Place the bottle in an icy salt bath to keep it cool.

Take a bucket of water and add a few spoons of salt and several ice cubes to it. The salt will lower the freezing point of water to below 32 degrees and you’ll have a bottle of chilled blush wine in 15 minutes or less.

What Not To Do

Chilling your glasses won’t chill the wine inside them. While chilling the glass is always a good idea, it won’t drastically affect the temperature of the wine in it.

Also, ice cubes dilute a wine’s flavor. The ice melts to form water which will have a bad impact on the blush wine’s taste.

If you’re serving a bottle of light wine, it already won’t have a lot of alcohol and the added water will further dilute its flavor and you’ll be left with a bland flavorless wine. Nobody wants that so unless you’re serving a bold wine, ice cubes aren’t a good idea.

Other Easy Wine Chilling Techniques

Salty ice, tub

We talked about how this was the best way to cool wine bottles if you’re in a hurry. But you can also use this for when you’re serving wine to guests in an outdoor setting. For instance, if you’ve got a backyard full of guests, serve a cheese platter and put a few bottles of blush wine in ice buckets.

Have servers refill your guests’ glasses periodically. The hot outdoors weather won’t affect your wine’s temperature. This comes in handy with blush wines particularly because they’re considered summertime wines and are popular drinks when the weather becomes hot and outdoors temperature rises.

Ice cube cooling

If you’re in a hurry to chill a glass of wine, toss in a couple of ice cubes. Only use this method for unoaked wines that won’t suffer too much from the extra water because the ice cubes will dilute the wine’s flavor as they melt.

You can also use reusable ice cubes in a single glass. However, they thaw pretty quickly so you’ll need extra on standby. Using this method means you’ll need to continuously replace your guests’ glasses instead of simply refilling them.

Frozen grapes

Try freezing some color-coordinated grapes to put into your glass of wine as a substitute to ice cubes. They won’t dilute your wine and will give it more structure. Plus, they look great.

Insulated Bag

Insulated bags are another great way to cool your blush wine on the go. Keep 2 or 3 bottles in the bag and they’ll stay cold.

Related Article: Should Rosé Wine Be Chilled Before Serving?

Conclusion

Do you keep wine in the fridge?

Yes, in a nutshell. However, there are a few details to remember.

While it’s best to chill wine ahead of time, if you’re short on time, all is not lost. There are numerous simple ways to quickly cool down your rosé without sacrificing taste, ranging from salty ice baths to frozen grapes.

When you’re ready to open a bottle of wine, remember these pointers and you’ll be ready to enjoy it to its full potential.