Unfrozen Wine
Most recent answer: 02/04/2008
Q:
We had multiple bottles of red and white wine stored in a free standing wooden wine rack in the basement of our lake home in northern MN when the heat went off and subsequently froze everything liquid in the home solid...broken pipes, toilets, etc. None of the wine however, froze AT ALL. This happened during a particularly cold spell...up to 35 below zero F. Is the wine still going to be good? Why didn"t it freeze? It"s completely liquid, no slush.
- Jodi (age 32)
Minneapolis, MN, USA
- Jodi (age 32)
Minneapolis, MN, USA
A:
Jodi-
Any solute in water, including the alcohol and sugars, etc. in wine, lowers the freezing point. We discuss the reasons for that in other answers on this site. Even if the water does start to freeze, the extra alcohol left in the liquid part will lower its freezing point even more, so it has to get really cold before the whole thing freezes.
If the wine didn’t freeze and the corks didn’t get leaky, I bet the cold period won’t have hurt it. (This will trouble purists who believe that wine should be kept at some precise temperature, 55° F, if I remember.) However, I don’t know if the wine will be good because you don’t say what type it was to begin with. Also, I’m not a real wine expert.
Mike W.
There is another consideration. It is well known that when water freezes it increases in volume, hence, burst water pipes and other disasters. Alcohol, on the other hand, has a negative coefficient of freezing, that is, it actually shrinks when it freezes. Wine, being a mixture of about 11 or 12 percent alcohol doesn’t expand as much when freezing as pure water. So the probability of a wine bottle exploding is not a great as as in a freezing water pipe. Also your wine storage cellar, being in the basement perhaps, may have not been subjected to the full -35 F temperature. Any any case I would advise to drink the wine. If it’s no good, spit it out and make some ’wine connesseur’ type of statement to your guests.
LeeH
Any solute in water, including the alcohol and sugars, etc. in wine, lowers the freezing point. We discuss the reasons for that in other answers on this site. Even if the water does start to freeze, the extra alcohol left in the liquid part will lower its freezing point even more, so it has to get really cold before the whole thing freezes.
If the wine didn’t freeze and the corks didn’t get leaky, I bet the cold period won’t have hurt it. (This will trouble purists who believe that wine should be kept at some precise temperature, 55° F, if I remember.) However, I don’t know if the wine will be good because you don’t say what type it was to begin with. Also, I’m not a real wine expert.
Mike W.
There is another consideration. It is well known that when water freezes it increases in volume, hence, burst water pipes and other disasters. Alcohol, on the other hand, has a negative coefficient of freezing, that is, it actually shrinks when it freezes. Wine, being a mixture of about 11 or 12 percent alcohol doesn’t expand as much when freezing as pure water. So the probability of a wine bottle exploding is not a great as as in a freezing water pipe. Also your wine storage cellar, being in the basement perhaps, may have not been subjected to the full -35 F temperature. Any any case I would advise to drink the wine. If it’s no good, spit it out and make some ’wine connesseur’ type of statement to your guests.
LeeH
(published on 02/04/2008)