Uh, what? Doesn't this sound like horrible advice?

[Warren_Taranow]

@Thomas Keim

I’ve frozen… a '29 Latour once - and that held as well.

Thomas,
You’re probably be the only person in history who could write a tasting note on a frozen '29 Latour!
Cheers,
Warren

[Chris_Seiber]

@Ian Dorin

I can’t explain it scientifically, but I can’t imagine freezing a wine, and having something separate from it and that NOT having an impact on the wine. As I noted, I don’t buy this freezing thing b/c I’ve had frozen wine that was brought back to a drinkable temp, and it tasted very dull.

I don’t think anyone is claiming freezing a wine doesnt have any impact on it. The question isn’t how the leftover half of a bottle frozen tastes compared to a brand new bottle, but how it tastes compared to a partial wine having been stored some other way for that period of time. And particularly, in the case of freezing, a longer period of time.

Any of us can test this. Open a bottle, put half in the freezer for 10 days, and store the other half whatever way you think to be the next best for the same period, then thaw the frozen wine and try them side by side. Better still, do it blind when you have friends over, or as a quick little fun experiment before a tasting dinner begins, and see what people think. I’m guessing that, unless maybe you pick something like a 2010 Bordeaux or 2010 Barolo that needs tons of age and will handle being open ten days pretty well and which won’t be very drinkable in its “preserved youth” in the freezer, you’re going to prefer the frozen wine, and probably by a large margin.

[Ken_V]

@Warren Taranow

@Thomas Keim

I’ve frozen… a '29 Latour once - and that held as well.

Thomas,
You’re probably be the only person in history who could write a tasting note on a frozen '29 Latour!
Cheers,
Warren

A Latoursicle!

[Sc0tt_F_tzgerald]

I wrap my wine in butcher paper to avoid freezer burn.

[Thomas_Keim]

@Warren Taranow

@Thomas Keim

I’ve frozen… a '29 Latour once - and that held as well.

Thomas,
You’re probably be the only person in history who could write a tasting note on a frozen '29 Latour!
Cheers,
Warren

Hagler-Leonard fight - 1987 - had a bunch of high rollers over and we were popping corks like it was going out of style - When I was helping my wife clean up - found the bottle of '29 Latour that was almost full - in the freezer it went -

[Jay_S_Miller]

@Chris Seiber

Did you read the article? It is talking about preserving already-opened wine, and it specifically says to make sure to leave room for the frozen wine to expand.

This works really well, by the way. Say you open a good bottle the night before you go out of town for a week, and you have half the bottle left. Unless you have Coravin, freezing it is the best way to preserve it for when you get back home.

Totally agree. The longest I kept a “frozen” wine was close to a year and upon returning to room temperature it was as good as when it went in.

MrBigJ

[Dav1dZ]

I did this recently with a 1989 Lafarge Pommard Pezerolles and I was struck by how well the wine held up after 3 weeks in the freezer.

[Warren_Taranow]

@Thomas Keim

@Warren Taranow

@Thomas Keim

I’ve frozen… a '29 Latour once - and that held as well.

Thomas,
You’re probably be the only person in history who could write a tasting note on a frozen '29 Latour!
Cheers,
Warren

Hagler-Leonard fight - 1987 - had a bunch of high rollers over and we were popping corks like it was going out of style - When I was helping my wife clean up - found the bottle of '29 Latour that was almost full - in the freezer it went -

Marvelous Marvin vs Sugar Ray. A controversial split decision if I remember correctly. Unbelievable a 60 year old Latour was neglected. Glad you saved it.

Warren

[Ben_J]

Interesting… when you put a bottle in the freezer like this, would you reseal it with a cork, or something else works better? I’d never heard of this before.

[Jim_Brennan]

@jcoley3

Ian,

It’s a terrible way to store an unopened bottle - the bottle will shatter, or, at a bare minimum, the cork will get pushed out. But…I have experimented with it with bottles that are half full and if anything gets lost as the wine thaws, it is almost impossible to tell. Years ago I did experiments with bottles of a restaurant’s higher end house Chardonnay, and no one on staff could tell the difference between a glass poured from frozen bottle and a freshly opened bottle once they came to the same temperature.

I do it primarily with cooking wine, but it’s a more effective way to extend the life of a bottle than you might think. You will get some tartrate crystals at the bottom of the bottle.

If you can deal with the thaw time, it will preserve quite a bit better than a Coravin. I’m happy to sell the recipe for freezing for only $100.

[GregT]

Ian - try it.

I’ve only done it with white wines and only accidentally. But I’ve accidentally done it with full unopened bottles an with partly full bottles.

Never having done it with reds, I can’t speak to what happens, but I’m with you in thinking that somehow it has to affect the wine.

In any case, when I’ve done it with whites, here’s what happens.

If it’s an unopened bottle, the cork gets pushed out. Very much like the bottle I rec’d last month that was shipped in single-digit weather by one of your neighbors in NJ. The bottles don’t shatter but I don’t know what would happen with a screw-cap bottle.

If it’s a partly-filled bottle, the cork isn’t affected, nor is a screw-cap. I guess the air in the bottle is compressible enough.

But if you thaw the bottle standing upright, the wine stratifies. You can actually see the separate layers. I don’t know the science, but just guessing, I’m thinking that the stuff with more sugars and carbs may be heavier, the water is maybe lighter, and the stuff with alcohol/water is probably on top. There are some crystals that may drop to the bottom of the bottle. I’ve tried tasting the different layers with a long straw, just to see what I’m going to get, and it kind of works but not really well. Once you pour the wine it all mixes up and you’re back to where you were.

The shock to me each time I did this is that there was really very little flavor and aroma loss. I’m just not comfortable to do this intentionally on a regular basis, but I no longer get PO’d if I accidentally freeze something.

Never did it with sherry, dessert wines, or reds.

[thomasP]

I once did an experiment with three red wines. It was a long time ago, so I don’t remember the wines, but they were all from Spain–the one product I remember in the experiment is LAN (I was into that producer back then).

A case of wine: three wines, four bottles each. I opened one bottle of each and made my notes and put them into the freezer; then, I opened two more bottles of each, checked them for consistency, and left one of each on the counter, pumped with that Vacuvin thing (this was a long time ago!), and placed the other one of each in the refrigerator. That let me with one unopened bottle of each wine.

A week later, I had some people over to evaluate the wines blind. I opened the sealed bottles and compared their notes with my notes from the previous week. They generally weren’t too far away from one another.

I had earlier taken the wines out of the freezer and out of the refrigerator to get to room temperature. The rankings of the group generally showed that the Vacuvin wines were dead or near dead; the refrigerated wines, though not dead were not as solid as the freshly opened wines; and the frozen wines were not so easy to tell apart from the freshly opened wines.

[Anton_D]

@thomasP

I once did an experiment with three red wines. It was a long time ago, so I don’t remember the wines, but they were all from Spain–the one product I remember in the experiment is LAN (I was into that producer back then).

A case of wine: three wines, four bottles each. I opened one bottle of each and made my notes and put them into the freezer; then, I opened two more bottles of each, checked them for consistency, and left one of each on the counter, pumped with that Vacuvin thing (this was a long time ago!), and placed the other one of each in the refrigerator. That let me with one unopened bottle of each wine.

A week later, I had some people over to evaluate the wines blind. I opened the sealed bottles and compared their notes with my notes from the previous week. They generally weren’t too far away from one another.

I had earlier taken the wines out of the freezer and out of the refrigerator to get to room temperature. The rankings of the group generally showed that the Vacuvin wines were dead or near dead; the refrigerated wines, though not dead were not as solid as the freshly opened wines; and the frozen wines were not so easy to tell apart from the freshly opened wines.

I concur with your experiences!

[Thomas_Keim]

@Warren Taranow

Marvelous Marvin vs Sugar Ray. A controversial split decision if I remember correctly. Unbelievable a 60 year old Latour was neglected. Glad you saved it.

Warren

The reason it was neglected was because the owner of the bottle was quite buzzed at the time, and there were 1915 and 1919 Burgundies and Bordeaux wines open all over the place - we had just bought a huge cellar of old wines and were tasting through them - the '29 Latour was the youngest wine of the group that night -

In fact, I also froze a 1913 Chateauneuf-du-Pape that same night that hadn’t been finished.

[Chris_Seiber]

@Ben J.

Interesting… when you put a bottle in the freezer like this, would you reseal it with a cork, or something else works better? I’d never heard of this before.

I think because it’s frozen, the seal doesn’t really matter. I’ve just stuck the partial 750ml into the freezer with a cork in it, but you could probably do it any number of ways, so long as you allow a bit of room for the wine to expand when it freezes.

[Stan_Harris]

I’m curious, if anyone thinks the auto defrost mode of modern freezers could account for why some do better than others. I suspect most are placing these leftovers into their home freezers, but do we have a few outlayers with manual defrost freezers?

[todd_waldmann]

@thomasP

I once did an experiment with three red wines. It was a long time ago, so I don’t remember the wines, but they were all from Spain–the one product I remember in the experiment is LAN (I was into that producer back then).

A case of wine: three wines, four bottles each. I opened one bottle of each and made my notes and put them into the freezer; then, I opened two more bottles of each, checked them for consistency, and left one of each on the counter, pumped with that Vacuvin thing (this was a long time ago!), and placed the other one of each in the refrigerator. That let me with one unopened bottle of each wine.

A week later, I had some people over to evaluate the wines blind. I opened the sealed bottles and compared their notes with my notes from the previous week. They generally weren’t too far away from one another.

I had earlier taken the wines out of the freezer and out of the refrigerator to get to room temperature. The rankings of the group generally showed that the Vacuvin wines were dead or near dead; the refrigerated wines, though not dead were not as solid as the freshly opened wines; and the frozen wines were not so easy to tell apart from the freshly opened wines.

This is consistent with my experiences. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth above is another tempest in a teapot. The role for freezing wine is short term preservation of a wine when the bottle hasn’t been emptied. It works because it slows down oxidation, which is the source of the changes that we see in opened wines. It’s just another technique to have in your quiver should you need it. Don’t make too much of it…

[A_S_K_R_O_B_A_C_K]

@Chris Seiber

Did you read the article? It is talking about preserving already-opened wine, and it specifically says to make sure to leave room for the frozen wine to expand.

This works really well, by the way. Say you open a good bottle the night before you go out of town for a week, and you have half the bottle left. Unless you have Coravin, freezing it is the best way to preserve it for when you get back home.

Ian, I have to agree with Chris! If its open and you arn’t going to drink it, freezing can actually preserve with some success. Not suggesting it for an old wine or as a normal course, but…

Try it.

[AnnetteH]

Newb here. I’ve never heard of this Dr. Vinny so decided to read some past questions. Most of his advise was interesting and helpful to a neophyte like myself. The one question that I took issue with was a reader asking the best way to chill wine, specifically Zinfandel, before serving. He gave a few options but then stated that reds should be served room temp. In my limited barely-scratched-the-surface research I’ve come to understand that room temp historically was not what most Americans live in daily. I think 60 degrees is more “correct”, am I right?

[Thomas_Keim]

@AnnetteH

Newb here. I’ve never heard of this Dr. Vinny so decided to read some past questions. Most of his advise was interesting and helpful to a neophyte like myself. The one question that I took issue with was a reader asking the best way to chill wine, specifically Zinfandel, before serving. He gave a few options but then stated that reds should be served room temp. In my limited barely-scratched-the-surface research I’ve come to understand that room temp historically was not what most Americans live in daily. I think 60 degrees is more “correct”, am I right?

'Zackly - Always better to start out a little cooler than warmer - it warms up fast anyways - but what do you do if it’s too warm out of the gate? Add an icecube?