It started out as a joke. A bit of a laugh. A tribute to the inner-bogan-larrikin I’ve been gradually coming to terms with since I hit 30 and stopped trying to be more sophisticated than I actually am.
But it’s gone beyond a joke now. It’s getting out of hand. I’m thinking of doing it in public. At nice places, with elegant people. And I’m worried I can’t stop.
I dial a legitimate expert.
“Peter,” I say, when he answers. “I have a problem.”
He waits. He’s a wine guy. This could be going anywhere.
“I’ve started putting ice in my wine.”
Generous peals of laughter gush forth like the foam from a freshly sabraged bottle of fancy Frenchy. I’m not surprised. I’m on the phone with Peter Marchant, a wine guy with chops (certified sommelier, Queensland wine judge, past member of the national executive for Sommeliers Australia, etc). Eventually, the ferment of his amusement subsides, he catches his breath, and asks me what sounds like a significant question.
“OK, OK, OK. What colour?”
(Turns out I do still care about appearing more sophisticated than I actually am, because I gloss over the cab sav I washed down with a few cubes before Christmas.)
“White,” I reply, before specifying the wine is still white wine. Still. I take care to emphasise this as I hope it may help me recover some of my reputation. At least white is served cold, after all.
“Look,” Marchant explains. “You can do whatever the hell you like to your wine in private, but I’d think twice before doing it at a nice place, in front of people, or with a good wine someone’s taken time and trouble with.”
The ice freezes out the flavour, he says, dilutes the drink and interrupts the path of the plonk out of the glass, into your mouth and over your tongue. Why punish your palate, and ruin the wine?
Because it’s hot in Queensland in summer, I say. And the sound of ice clinking in a glass sounds refreshing. And surely it can’t be all that bad; it’s not like I’m icing my beer …
Picking up on my disappointment, my patient sommelier friend cheers me up by recounting the many times he’s seen someone sheepishly ask for ice, only to discover dining companions relieved to have license to follow suit.
Like dinner at 5pm and rissoles, putting ice in wine is a common, clandestine Aussie custom, one that recognises the cask-white-straight from-the-fridge-swillers who remember when olive oil was sold at pharmacies, celebrated the Cheerio sausage, and elected not to pronounce the ‘h’ in chardonnay. I feel seen, and nostalgic for mum’s Coolabah, and strangely proud to be less of a wine snob than I used to be.
The fact is, iced white wine on a balmy day can be more enjoyable to drink than lukewarm white wine, especially if it’s being enjoyed in the sunshine of the sunshine state; the same sun that gives Queenslanders that “it’s too hot to take anything too seriously” edge. Yes, it’s a bit bogan maybe, but bit-bogan is part of my heritage; who am I to pretend otherwise?
Then comes a revelation, from the wine guy himself.
“And hey, on some occasions, in some circumstances, you could say ice in your white wine might actually improve it.”
Wait. What?
Ice will mask flavours, he explains, so your experience of an “average, commercially made, beige white wine” could be improved with ice. Especially if it’s hot, and especially if you’re dining alfresco. These sorts of wines (never mind the varieties; he’s talking about the ones you tend to find in the $5-$15 range) don’t have the same complexity as their more cultivated companions. As a general rule of thumb, it seems, the more effort someone has put into making the wine, the less you want to fiddle around with it. Especially if the fiddling involves adding flavour-diluting blocks of frozen water.
“What if,” I wonder aloud, “I made ice cubes out of the nice white wine I was drinking?” (I realise how desperate this sounds before I finish the sentence.)
“Look,” he says, in his best, trained-in-hospitality voice, “how about you try smaller pours, smaller glasses, and an ice-bucket, because when it comes to wine, generally speaking, that’s where the ice belongs. In the bucket.”
I thank him for his advice, we end our conversation, via an anecdote about the wine slushie trend of the late 20-teens, and his reminder that “room temperature” in summer in Queensland bears little to no resemblance to the European “room temperature” you’re supposed to serve wine at. For this reason, he keeps his wine fridge set to about 12C. That way he can look forward to reds that won’t take long to warm to their 18C peak if needed, and whites that could be ready to drink or only take five minutes in the big fridge to cool down a little more (their optimum is generally eight to 13C).
“And if you can’t wait that five minutes for your glass of white wine,” he finishes, “then your problem probably isn’t the ice.”
Katherine Feeney is a journalist and broadcaster who presents Afternoons on ABC Radio Brisbane
