Wine freezing fallout, rosé tasted blind, & a nifty Mersault pairing

It's been a busy week at the world headquarters of Wine I Like! I think I bummed some folks out on Linked In with my wine freezing... My three commenters there seemed genuinely offended, although I'm not sure they actually read the blog post or checked the links. It's funny what gets people riled up.

Elsewhere, I participated in the latest installment of the Central Coast Wine Press Tasting Panel. We enjoyed  a couple of rosé wines tasted blind and paired with cheeses, charcuterie and pulled pork. One was Central Coast and the other Provence. The group opinions were mixed, but I definitely leaned toward the 2012 Domaine de la Fourquette Cotes du Provence Cuvee Rosee d'Aurore over the 2011 Carhartt Grenache Rosé Santa Ynez Valley. It was a contrast in styles - crisp, dry and aromatic newly released Provence vs round, full and luscious Central Coast with a year of bottle age. At any rate it was great fun with good folks. Click here to read Laurie's full notes on the evening.

Finally, I decided it was time to "close the deal" on a purchase I made from Wines 'Till Sold Out two years ago. I wanted to open my second and final bottle of 2007 Louis Latour Mersault-Blagny 1er Cru Château de Blagny ($37 each with free shipping), so I decided to search on Google for good Chardonnay pairings. What I found was a simple recipe of chicken leg quarters roasted in white wine, marjoram, cream & butter that was recommended for "medium oak-influenced Chardonnay" - the rich dark meat of the chicken alights the fruit and richness of the wine. It was a solid pairing and the wine showed well otherwise- Austere and nutty upon opening, it really came alive after an hour or two. Light gold in color with aromas of toasted almond, river rock and lemon zest. Bright citrus and stone fruit flavors framed with dried herb, mineral and nutty notes. Richly layered and brightly polished, with a full 45 second finish of spice, herb and citrus. It continued to improve until the end of the bottle. Very nice. Drink/short term hold. It was so good I didn't even have to freeze it!

Was freezing my open wine a good idea?

I recently ran across a Cellartracker tasting note mentioning freezing opened wine for later consumption. Intrigued, I posted a note on Wineberserkers.com getting several interesting responses and decided to give it a try.

A quick Google search reveals several sources of information regarding the trial and error and the science of freezing wine. Basically, at common household freezer temperatures the water component of the wine will freeze leaving traces of unfrozen liquid with highly concentrated alcohol. In the short-term the wine remains largely uncompromised, although you might see some sediment from tartaric acid falling out of solution.

In unopened bottles the expansion of the freezing liquid and ultra-low humidity can push out or dry out corks or even crack the glass, so there doesn't really seem to be a practical application for freezing wine unopened. As for storing an opened bottle for later consumption, what I read considered this viable although there were varying opinions on the length of time you would want to leave the wine frozen (or how much the structure might be affected).

I opened a bottle of Melville 2008 Pinot Noir Terraces, Sta. Rita Hills. Out of the bottle and over several hours the wine was showing a full bouquet and drinking with ample bold red fruit along with big spice notes, hints of earth, and richly textured integrated structure, along with some heat on the finish.

Straight from the freezer

With just under half a bottle remaining, I decanted the wine into a 375 ml bottle that I use for storage and placed it diagonally in my freezer. Upon removing the bottle the following day, the mostly frozen wine remained diagonally suspended. I left the bottle on my counter until the liquid leveled out, then placed it in lukewarm water in my sink to finish thawing. After about an hour the wine was at a good approximate 60 degree temperature for drinking Pinot Noir.

In drinking the previously frozen Melville Terraces, whatever affects freezing a wine may have over 24 hours may have were imperceptible to me. I might have said that the structure of the wine had softened ever-so-slightly, but I couldn't be certain. The flavor profile was identical to me, and there was no oxidation. Basically as far as I could reasonably tell I was drinking an identical glass of wine to the one I had decanted 24 hours earlier. Next time I'll try the freezing for a longer time frame.

With mixed results I've pumped, gassed, and dropped little plastic disks into my wine bottles. The only question that remains for me is why this isn't the consensus for saving an opened bottle.