Is Adding Ice To Your Wine Still The Ultimate Faux Pas?
Written by Eliza Dumais
Illustration by Cerise Zelenetz
Think of it like grammar: You’d better know the rules before you break them. Wine works that way, too. You’re entitled to commit the occasional faux pas, so long as you do so with intention. You make choices not errors. Think: Drinking from the bottle, summer spritzers, perhaps most notably, the addition of ice to a lukewarm glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
Needless to say, Wine On The Rocks has been maligned as uniquely gauche since the days of yore. At a surface level, we associate the practice with sub-par grocery store Chardonnay or the Real Housewives of New Jersey. That said, for plenty of folks in the industry — sommeliers, connoisseurs, even winemakers — an ice cube every now and then is hardly a misstep. So why, then, do we still dismiss the whole ice-in-wine shtick as a tacky hallmark of classlessness?
“As a wine professional I’m way more interested in people enjoying themselves than lecturing them on the ‘correct’ ways to drink a beverage,” says Julia Schwartz, wine director at Manhattan’s Claud. “Regardless of whether you’re in a restaurant, at the beach, or at home, put whatever you want in your wine.”
Schwartz is correct: For a substance that is, at bottom, hedonistic, who are we to police the right ways to consume it? Naturally, the intent is pleasure. Nevertheless, it’s worth addressing the fact that the addition of ice will alter the integrity of a wine as it was initially intended by its maker. Which is to say, for plenty of folks who venerate the stuff with a near-sacramental awe, the practice is not merely uncouth, but a sin.
“If I poured someone something beautiful that I personally would love to taste, and I saw it getting watered down, I might cry for the winemaker a bit,” says Allie Huggins, wine buyer for New York’s Oberon Group (Ruccola, June, and Rhodora, among others). “But if we’re talking about anything that’s served by the glass, it’s your business how you enjoy your wine. And while, yeah, I’d rather stick the bottle in the freezer and just be patient, it’s not my prerogative.”
Au contraire, for natural wine importer Zev Rovine, the ice-conundrum can, indeed, have occasional merit. “Sure, if you’re in Burgundy, drinking wine that’s allocated or particularly expensive, it’s a little tacky to pass up your opportunity to taste it in full — but frankly, I know plenty of winemakers who just want their wine to be purchased and consumed. And if that’s how you’d like to drink it, they’re just happy you’re enjoying it,” he says.
From a sales standpoint, this makes sense: Importers and distributors are not in the business of discouraging drinking behavior, no matter the format. Which is to say…ice-ify to your heart’s content. “No one wants to pick apart or contemplate everything they drink,” adds Rovine. “How long does anyone really wanna sit around and talk about the wine? Sometimes, having a nice time is more important.”
In any case, the whole ice-in-wine tradition certainly has its cultural ties: In the South of France, rosé with ice is a traditional summer drink, and in regions of Spain, you might mix middling red wine with ice and Coca Cola. Plenty of de rigueur New York cocktails will make use of ice and sparkling wine, both. “For me, adding ice to a glass of wine reminds me of where we live in the summer: the French coast, the waterside, the beach clubs,” says Juri Bantlin, who makes wine alongside his parents at Domaine Les Enfants Sauvages in the Côtes Catalanes region of France. “In fact, rosé piscine is a super normal thing here. Often it’s made with bad, conventional wine. It’s not my thing, but it’s definitely a staple.”
When it comes to Bantlin’s own family-made wine, however, things are a bit more nuanced — and as he sees it, the same dictum applies to other natural winemakers with similarly serious commitments to their land, and their juice. “The wines we make — and by ‘we,’ I mean all my natural winemaker colleagues — are filled with aromas and notes you don’t want to hide and dilute with water,” he says. “So yes, I would advise someone against adding ice. Put the bottle in cold water, even the freezer. It will be worth the wait.”
On the other hand, Eric Bach, winemaker at Good Boy — a natural wine operation based along California’s Central Coast — feels less precious about the whole affair. “Our wines are already quite light to begin with, so they definitely don't benefit from being diluted,” says Bach. “But ultimately, once someone buys a bottle from us, it becomes their experience. We’ve done the work to get something we’re proud of into their hands. If they want to add ice, or, say, mix it with Kool-aid powder, that’s up to them.”
It is, of course, essential to consider the inherent artistry in the project of wine-making. It’s an operation that requires care, labor, adaptability, and creativity. Adding ice to your glass, then, is something like speaking at full-volume mid-screening in a movie theater. The work is not ruined, per say. Consumers are meant to process and enjoy as they please. But alas, in these cases, folks are hardly digesting the thing as the artist intended. The original format has been augmented.
“Listen, even if someone asks me to add an ice cube to their glass, I’ll advise them to taste the wine before they dilute it — just so they can sample it in its purest form,” says Huggins. “It’s like cooking: Taste, salt, pepper. You don’t just blindly add to the mix.” And while she certainly has no interest in shaming anyone for their preferred potable practices — she’ll gladly accommodate — she’s merely suggesting that folks take a brief moment to process what’s in their glass in its purest form before they make revisions.
“Yes, ok, I’ll admit, if you looked at me and asked for ice with certain bottles, I’d be judgmental,” says Rovine. “It would mean that you didn’t care about what was in your glass. But, like I said, there are times when caring too much about what’s in your glass is just pretentious and un-fun.”
However curt, there’s some wisdom there. Wine — like art, like literature — services an experience. For all the ways we’re well advised to commend the countless nuances therein, the goal is still a hedonistic one. And if drinking wine on the rocks equates to pleasure for you, then by all means, do your worst.