Occasionally a wine gets opened and it is of lesser quality and I can't be bothered battling my way through it. I've frozen some in the past and they work fairly well.

The other night a friend brought around a cheaper dessert wine. In the morning there was about 100ml in the bottom (It was a 500ml bottle.) so I thought I would try freezing it for using in dessert's. Except it won't freeze. My freezer is set at -4 Centigrade. Does anyone know at what temperature Dessert wine freezes or do I have to use it sooner rather than latter?

Jeremy,

Wouldn't that depend on the alcohol content?
The higher percentage of alcohol, the colder it would have to be to freeze.?!

Yeah but its only %11- the dessert wine that is. While the reds I commonly do this with all sit around %13. I did this with some Cheaper Ammarone (Pasqua) that was %15 and it has frozen completely (Its labeled Ammarone in my freezer.).

I know this. Alcohol freezes at -173 degrees Fahrenheit. Your refrigerator won't get that cold (duh!).

Okay but the wine is frozen (like snow) Is that the water freezing and containing the alcohol? In your opinion.

In my opinion it is a definite

So what about the dessert wine? Is it the sugar/glycerol or something?

I was actually going to post the question of whether you could freeze wine (for use in stock) based on a thread I read on a foodie message board. You beat me to it, Jeremy.

So, have you frozen wine for some time? Any tips about doing this? I might try it once just as a curiosity...

I don't see why one would bother (unless you go to the trouble of reducing the leftover wine to a glaze and then freezing it). Keep an open bottle of red and white in the refrigerator. When you have extra pour the open bottle from the fridge's contents into the "new" bottle (that way you are always keeping the freshest stock on hand) and put it back in to the refrigerator. The cooking wine will last for a considerable period of time and be useful for most applications (wine dependent recipes (ie need at least a bottle's worth in the recipe) such as coq au vin usually reward opening a brand new bottle).

I figured that it probably wasn't worth the effort, Jones, especially considering I haven't yet bought a freezer or 2nd fridge to store extra stuff.

I have actually been doing what you've suggested since you first suggested it in another thread like, what, 6 months ago? Works for me. Also, how long do you think keeping wine in this manner (in the fridge) is OK? Two weeks? More?

I would say a month but whenever I am not sure I just taste the wine before using it.

I do it because our fridge is often full. Also during summer we never have any wine left open or undrunk- it just doesn't happen. So its either A) use inferior crap cask wine for nice sauces. B)Freeze drinkable unfinished wines during winter.

I also don't have as much time as I would like for cooking -too busy mostly. Sometimes I do, but then I make stocks etc..rather than sauces. I use the stocks in sauces etc. But like for the dessert wine, I'm going to make sorbet and wanted to keep the dessert wine till when I have itme to make it- sometime next month. For the Ammarone I want to add directly to a sauce rather than reducing it and freezing it later- IMO it adds a more direct wine flavour.

TJ,
I put the wine in a sealable plastic bag and put it in the freezer. Its worked for years and years. Even with other dessert wines. Not this one though. Its the Charles Wiffen Ice Wine Riesling 2001 and the bastard just won't freeze- maybe I'll give up and buy another bottle for the sorbet when I make it.

Interesting,

I have 3/4 a bottle of a Ruby Port I was going to freeze. Now I'm thinking it might not work.

I accidentally froze a bottle of Viognier once. Forgot about it until the next day after I put it in the freezer to chill just before a meal.

It froze to what I would call a "hard slush". Frozen, but not quite as hard as plain water. Plenty hard enough for longer term storage - like a month or so.

I actually thawed it and drank it. It tasted a little sweeter than I remember that particular bottle. In addition, the alcohol content seemed to be lower.

I would think that for the purpose of sauces, freezing wine would be okay but not great. A lot of foods, like tomatoes, have alcohol-soluble flavors that come out only in the presence of alcohol. No alcohol, no flavors.

That said, however, some sauces use the wine only for some flavoring and not for this chemical reaction (e.g., Hollandaise) - so a frozen wine would be okay.

Someone should experiment with a wine they don't care if it's ruined and in a meal where they're not feeding people whom you are trying to impress. Let us know how it goes. We'll dub you the Mad Scientist for the month.

Isn't icewine pressed at below freezing temperatures and the liquid extracted leaving the water behind as frozen crystals? That may explain why the wine won't freeze. I'm not sure of the actual reason (chemistry and physics weren't my top subjects).

GA,
Good point. I didn't think about that. This was made using cry-extraction so there might be a differance. But this could explain why it won't freeze.