The temperature around here at the moment is below freezing. Will it hurt bottles of wine to be stood out in our shed below freezing? I'm wondering how low the temperature can go before either the wine is affected or the bottles fracture?
~ -7 deg C.
I don't know, but I can tell you that our doorstep was cold enough for milk to freeze and fracture the bottles between the milkman leaving it and 7am. Presumably the higher the alcohol content the lower wine will go without freezing, but I don't know if the taste will be affected before then. You can make alcoholic sorbets though, so it should be edible even if frozen (but not if it has fractured glass in, obviously).
There's a certain number of homebrewers who freeze their wine on purpose as it's meant to mature quicker.
Can't speak from experience though.
But not in glass bottles ...
yes, they will be in danger
If it ruined, you could try freeze-distilled brandy. It's dangerous though as unlike boiling distillation it concentrate the poisonous oils.
R.
If you part freeze it and remove the ice it should leave the alcohol behind and make it stronger. I don't think it will mature faster frozen.
Champaign is deliberately frozen in glass bottles.
I once kept wine in an old fridge in the shed during the summer. When winter came and the thermostat turned out to be broken, the temperature dropped. At -5 deg C there was no sign of freezing, even after several weeks, but when the temperature suddenly fell to -10 deg C the wine froze to a slush which pushed the corks sometimes partly and sometimes fully out of the bottles without breaking them. Screw tops bulged up and in some cases came off completely. A bit messy, but no damage was done and the wine was still perfectly drinkable afterwards - most of it remained as the bottles had been upright.
John
Slighly more DIY :-) I've had a tub of one strike filler & a tube of no nails freeze up in the van during this cold spell.
Don't let 'em freee.
Ideal is wine stored between 40 and 65 degrees F, with no rapid temperature change within that range. Freezing is more damaging than high temps up to around 80 F. Something like a service porch, entryway or similar that has some of the warmth of your main residence is better than the freezing shed. Insulating material around the cases of wine is a good idea, to keep it steady.
Steve
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