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.

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With wine, the theory is clear: the hotter it gets, the more sugars the grapes can accumulate. Given that during fermentation these sugars will end up being transformed into alcohol, if it has been a year of great heatwaves, presumably the alcoholic strength of the wine will also be high. However, very alcoholic wines are not to everyone's taste, and even less so now that the heat is arriving. Faced with this, wineries are devising ways to also offer wines that significantly reduce alcohol, regardless of whether the vineyard has had to endure very high temperatures. Several Catalan wineries are already making wines or drinks that can be assimilated to wine, almost all of them white, ranging between 6% and 9.5% alcohol. They are an intermediate point between Mediterranean wines, with an alcohol content that can reach 15%-16%, and de-alcoholized wines, which become 0.0 if all the alcohol is removed. The aim is to respond to the trend of drinking less without giving up aroma and taste, which can diminish greatly in the processes to transform them into 0.0, and at the same time offer lower-alcohol wines without so much technological intervention.

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Spain is the country with the cheapest alcohol in the eurozone and the fifth with the lowest prices in the entire European Union. Excessive alcohol consumption carries the risk of developing a wide range of diseases, such as cancer of the pharynx, larynx, liver, esophagus, oral cavity, and especially colon and rectal cancer in men, and breast cancer in women, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Therefore, the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) advocates that taxes on alcoholic beverages should be tightened to mitigate their impact on health and also reduce healthcare spending. It estimates that, in Spain, if the price of cheaper beverages, such as wine and beer, increases by between 40% and 130%, there would be "a direct and significant effect" on the reduction of liver disease.

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