Ice with ice cubes: sacrilege or remedy against heatwaves?

Are you one of those who put an ice cube in a glass of wine when it's hot? Some do it to cope better and others consider it sacrilege, but the fact is that summer lends itself to letting go and, little by little, reservations about chilling wine with ice cubes are being lost. In Catalonia, the hospitality industry's experience is that foreign customers are more accustomed to asking for it, while local customers also dare to, but try to do so more discreetly. Whether you like it or not, drinking wine with ice cubes also reminds us that historically wine has not been drunk neat as has been imposed in recent decades with the improvement of its quality.Heatwaves are becoming more persistent and, although the only liquid remedy that truly mitigates their effects is water, anything that is consumed very cold seems to help. Although there are few wineries that have products specifically designed to be consumed with ice cubes and even in a large glass, such as Ice cavas or a new transparent Aragonese wine, the act of mixing wine and ice has been around for a long time and is rooted in combinations like sangria and the black summer cocktail (tinto de verano). Now with the popularization of the spritz, the orange cocktail that also has a wine component –prosecco if you're being canonical– the appeal of drinks with ice that are less alcoholic than distillates like gin and tonic has skyrocketed.Prejudices are lost (especially in private)

The wine produced nowadays is of high quality and, in this country, one of those with the most winemaking tradition in the world, the act of pouring ice cubes into a glass of wine is not a practice that everyone foresees, but there are already those who have let themselves go and put it into practice. The Wine Truck is a mobile wine bar that takes part in gastronomic, cultural, and private events, such as weddings. After five years, its co-owner, Sara Fernández, perceives that now "there is a little less prejudice, especially in more private venues," while "in more public settings, it's as if there's social shame in breaking the rules of the wine world".Since they do not have the same infrastructure as a restaurant and work outdoors, at weddings, for example, putting some ice cubes in the glass is one of the solutions so that guests do not have to refill it often and to prevent it from warming up too quickly. "The international client is the one who directly asks for ice cubes and does so casually: for him, it is not a sacrilege to put ice in it," assures Fernández, and he may even ask to add a slice of orange to the wine, which is usually reserved here for vermouth or other garnishes, such as putting basil and strawberry in a red wine, and ice, of course.

Regarding local clientele, the panorama changes quite a bit. "Catalan customers, when they ask for it, say it with a whisper," asserts Fernández. Unlike international customers, who quite often ask for it with red wine, a Catalan person, if they dare, asks for it with white, because they don't usually like to find a red wine served too cold. And what about rosé wine? "There isn't as much of a problem," guarantees Fernández, because with ice "people think it turns into something like a white" and, after all, it's not usually held in as high regard as white or red. "No one expects you to explain a rosé," he concludes.When dining at the Villa Más restaurant in s'Agaró, the experience is not very different, as certified by Paula Cuenda, best sommelier in Catalonia of 2026. She explains that the demand to add ice to wine is usually in the summer and that "most people who ask for it are French," who are already accustomed to doing so with rosés: they ask for a rosé piscine, which is usually prepared with a Provençal rosé with a lot of ice. There are also clients who "only want to cool down" and drink the wine very cold, because at home they are used to putting it in the freezer, while there are a few international clients who also ask for ice to pour into their sparkling wine glass.Be that as it may, when it's very hot, who can resist cooling down? "If we are on the beach, with 35 degrees and you need to cool down, it's logical that people end up putting an ice cube in to continue drinking wine," admits Cuenda, but not everything goes in a restaurant like Villa Más, recognized for its cuisine and its wine list. For example, a wine from a small producer, which is a faithful reflection of its terroir and on top of a difficult vintage, I would not recommend adding ice. "You dilute the wine, it loses aromas, texture... many things change and in the end you are distorting the pleasure that wine gives, watering it down and making it lose all its personality," he defends, so before pouring ice, he always recommends chilling the wine a little more with an ice bucket.The best wines to drink with ice

"The consumer should drink wine as they please", states Fernández, and the drop in consumption further supports this, according to Cuenda: "If in this way – with ice cubes – people are to continue drinking wine, I am nobody to tell people how they should drink it". However, it is advisable not to do it any old how, defends sommelier Joan Lluís Gómez, who is a professor at the Bellart school: "If a sacrilege is to be committed, it should be defensible".When choosing wine to drink with ice, "fresh, young, and perfumed will always be better," guarantees Gómez, especially because when the ice cubes start to melt, the wine still retains its aroma and helps to soften the acidity of young wine. The sommelier is in favor of doing this with a white or rosé wine: in the case of whites, he recommends malvasia de Sitges, muscat, xarel·lo with one of the two previous varieties, gewürztraminer, or riesling, while for rosés, merlot or trepat. With reds, the preferred option of international clientele, Fernández looks for them to be carbonic maceration or to have a little residual sugar.Gómez also sees it as essential that "the ice be of good quality" and then "dress the glass well": prepare a nice glass, with good ice and decorate with a sprig of rosemary, which at most will add a hint of aroma and can serve as a stick: to stir the contents of the glass and integrate the wine and ice well. He even suggests freezing grapes or making ice cubes with fruit inside, which will "keep the wine cold and prevent it from diluting as much".Mixing wine with water had been usual

Mixing wine with water should not surprise anyone, at least in historical terms. Professor of culinary history Isabel Lugo emphasizes that "only very recently has wine been drunk unmixed," meaning, "pure," because the improvement in production and storage conditions has made drinking wine without adding anything else widespread among the majority of the population. However, in the past, people were accustomed to mixing wine with water (as well as spices, honey...) so that the wines would not be so rustic and at the same time to make water consumption more nutritious and safe. "The association of water and wine is as old as the history of wine production and survival itself," she states, and it persists, as when soda is added to wine.In recent decades, the social consideration of wine has changed notably and it has lost space in daily life, which is why Lugo sees it as natural that reservations about drinking wine with ice are lost. According to her, "among people under forty there is no kind of guilt" in doing so, while older people in the summer also "open the season, have no prejudices and feel liberated from guilt because it is hot and it seems that it allows us all to have broad sleeves." She also remembers her father, who liked wine, to share a halfway resource to cool it with ice without losing its qualities: if the wine was not at the right temperature, her father only put two ice cubes in with certain wines to remove them immediately.