I know most of you are in winter, but it’s summer here in Chile, so it’s rosé time. I decided to experiment with putting ice in my rosé. Although most wine connoisseurs would scoff at the idea of putting ice in wine if not downright berate you for doing it, it is not as uncommon as you’d think. Should we ever put ice in our wine?
Wine Temperature
Temperature is important for storing and serving wine. We’re focusing on the latter. Most wine nerds will tell you that generally people serve their whites too cold and their reds too warm.
If a wine is too cold, it can close off the aromas and flavors. Therefore, white wines served at a fridge temperature may not be best for detecting all the nuances of wine. It should actually be warmer at around 49-55 F (7-12 C). However, your white will eventually warm up after taking it from the fridge or some sommeliers actually put wines that are too cold in the microwave for a few seconds to warm it up faster.
If a wine is too warm, it can accentuate the alcohol, bitterness, flaws and imbalance in the wine. Although we’ve been told to serve red wines at room temperature, that was based on people’s room temperature in an uninsulated house without any thermostat in pre-global warming France. A typical red should be around 60 F (15 C)–generally cooler when it’s a lighter red and warmer when it’s bigger. Average room temperature in the US is around 70 F (21 C) and above. Therefore, red wines at US room temperature should be chilled slightly.
Sparkling wines are served the coldest at 38-45 F (3-7 C) and rosés at the same temperatures as whites.
Overall, it depends on the style of the wine. More complex and intense wines should be served on the warmer side of the spectrum to allow the flavors to show. Cheaper, simpler and less balanced wines should be served colder to mask too much alcohol, sweetness and/or acidity. Many wine labels or producer websites tell you the ideal serving temperature nowadays.
As a side note, if you’re evaluating a wine, you have to be aware of serving temperature too. For example, if you’re at an outdoor tasting event on a hot day and all the wines are in ice buckets, perhaps some of a wine’s flaws are being masked and you overrate the wine. You could also underrate the wine because the wine’s nuances and aromas are being masked. In my experience, top quality white and red wines should still be excellent even at room temperature, so if you’re trying to judge wines fairly, they should be tasted at the warmer end of the recommended temperature spectrum to make sure flaws aren’t masked and to allow all the complexities to come out.
Cooling and maintaining wine temperature for serving
There are wine fridges that allow you to set certain sections to different temperatures, so you could have reds and whites ready to drink. You can put wines into your regular fridge for 2 (for reds) to 3 hours (for whites) if it’s at US room temperature or take it directly from your cellar, which should be around 55 F and adjust accordingly by waiting for it to warm up a bit or cooling it.
If guests come unexpectedly, you can also put room temperature wine in the freezer for 20-30 minutes. However, if you forget about it, you can ruin the wine and the bottle could break. Putting a bottle in an ice bucket with salted water can work just as fast or faster since the salt makes the water temperature below freezing rather than simply freezing without salt.
Then there’s the issue of maintaining the temperature while you’re drinking it. Some use an ice bucket. Some put it back in the fridge. This is particularly important when the weather is hot and you don’t have air conditioning or are drinking outside. It makes serving wine a lot of work–that’s why sommeliers are paid the big bucks =).
Ice in Wine: Advantages & Disadvantages
Given all the need to cool wines and maintain temperature especially in warm weather, why not put ice in your wine? Ice will cool the drink faster than putting it in an ice bucket or fridge since the ice melts and spreads the cold throughout the wine.*
Although there’s the advantage of chilling and maintaining the temperature of your wine faster, the obvious problem is that the melted water will dilute the wine. Therefore, it’s strictly taboo for most wine geeks to put ice in wine–at least for finer wines that have nuance and intensity that you don’t want to be diluted. It can thin the structure and mute the flavors.
At the same time, if you don’t have access to other forms of temperature control and a wine is too warm, one ice cube will probably make the experience better and not dilute your wine too much. It’s best to use a larger piece of ice that is just out of the freezer so they dilute more slowly while still having the cooling effect.
Moreover, for cheaper, simple and/or unbalanced wines, colder temperatures and dilution can help to mask the wine’s faults. If you’re poor and the bar charges outrageous prices for cheap wine, the ice also helps the wine taste better and last longer too.
In addition, high acid wines like Riesling will maintain its structure even with some dilution. Fruity and sweet wines can be better for some drinkers who like their wines drier to drink them colder and diluted by ice. For that reason, cocktails (some made with wine or sparkling) are served with ice. Sweet wine like Port might also be better for some people with ice. It must be why people drink soda, ice tea or lemonade with ice although I wonder if there are any soda purists who refuse to drink it with ice.
Some fortified wines like Port can have too much of an alcohol sensation that ice and dilution can help mitigate. Again, there are a lot of people who drink whiskey and hard liquor on the rocks, but in this case, I definitely know there are whiskey purists, like wine geeks, who will never do that.
Finally, although it’s taboo among wine geeks, it’s quite typical in the south of France, the country that established most of our wine drinking rules, to drink rosé a la piscine, or rosé on ice. Piscine means “swimming pool,” so it’s like the ice is bathing in a pool of wine. Wine rules and trends have changed over time. We don’t always have to play by the rules when it comes to wine. 
The Experiment & Tasting Notes
For this experiment, I’m going to try two rosés. For each, I’m going to drink a glass with ice and one without (but standard fridge cold). There probably would’ve been a bigger difference between drinking it warm vs. drinking it with ice, but I’ll assume most people have access to at least keeping their wine short term in a regular fridge. I’ll have a thermometer handy to try to note the difference in temperatures.
In addition, I’ve intentionally picked relatively cheaper rosés (although most aren’t expensive anyway). One is a sparkling rosé from Portugal while one is from Southwest France that is specifically marketed and labeled as “rosé piscine.” In fact, the label says ice will help express the flavors best.
NV Vinovalie Rosé Piscine
Vinovalie is a co-op in Southwest France. They produce a lot of varieties beyond Bordeaux varieties that come from the region like Braucol, Duras and Negrette. This particular rosé is made from Negrette with perhaps a bit of Muscat de Hambourg and other varieties (the label says it’s a blend dominated by Negrette). This wine has no appellation, but most or all of the grapes are most likely sourced from different appellations in Southwest France. Fronton is the most famous appellation for Negrette there.
I kept the bottle in a fridge at 38 F (3 C). The bottle was out only a minute before serving but it was served outside at 83 F (28 C) weather. Served with no ice, the temperature started in the low 50’s (10-12 C) and rose to the upper 50’s (14-15 C) after around 5 minutes. With no other temperature control, the temperature increased even more by the end of the meal. However, the wine served with ice maintained a temperature of 43 F (6 C) throughout the meal. In summary, the temperature with the ice is a little below what is recommended for rosé while the temperature without ice in warm weather quickly went up to a temperature above the recommended temperature for rosé.
In terms of taste, the wine without ice is a little sweeter with a touch of bitter notes while the wine with ice in it was of course fresher in terms of temperature but also less sweet and more acidic with less bitter notes. Neither were particularly aromatic or complex. In theory, the one without ice should be more aromatic, but it wasn’t a huge difference for this wine. The alcohol is low at 11%, so the ice doesn’t really play a role with that. Bottom line, the rosé a la piscine was better from the start and lasted a longer time while without ice it quickly got warm with the hot weather. Perhaps the dilution would be more noticeable if you wait too long to finish it, but I didn’t find it made a negative impact during the 45 minute lunch. Plus you can always add some more wine to the glass.
NV Mateus Brut Rosé Portugal
This has no specific appellation, so the grapes must be sourced from multiple locations in Portugal. They call themselves rosé specialists and have large production and international distribution–some have even made it here to Chile. They’re well-known for their bargain slightly off-dry rosé that comes in a uniquely curve-shaped bottle while this is closer to more typical sparkling wine bottles. The grapes are Baga and Shiraz. If you’re unfamiliar with Baga, it’s considered a versatile grape which can be used for light rosés and sparklings like this or more serious age-worthy reds too. Gently pressed. Secondary fermentation in tank (Charmat method). They say to serve it at 6-8 C. 12 g/L. pH 3.31. 11.5% alcohol. 
I had the same temperature and serving conditions as the Vinovalie. I compared how it tasted straight out of the fridge vs. out of the fridge with ice in it in warm weather. Besides obviously being colder and maintaining the temperature longer in the warm weather, there was less of a difference in taste with this one. There’s raspberry and blackberry fruit on the nose and palate for both, but definitely a dry wine. The iced one has less ripe fruit and more acidity, but it’s less obvious than with the Vinovalie. There’s a slight bitterness to this, but that doesn’t go away with the ice.
Conclusion
Ultimately it depends on your serving options, the weather, personal tastes and the style/quality of the wine if you decide to put ice in your wine. However, there are certainly situations where it could be the best option.
*A friend reminded me that there are such things as steel ice cubes. However, water based ice absorbs 10 times as much heat as steel, so one would need to put a large amount of steel in liquid nitrogen to get the same cooling ability as ice. This experiment shows how ice still cools faster, more evenly and longer than steel. Some steel cubes have water in them to get some of the benefits, but ice is still the best option if you don’t mind a bit of dilution.