Wine Gadget: Vacu Vin Rapid Ice Instant Wine Chiller



By John ~ October 17th, 2008.

Have you ever forgotten to put that bottle of white wine in the fridge that you wanted to serve with dinner tonight? Have you ever wanted an easier way to keep a bottle of wine cold than having to bother with an ice bucket? What about keeping a bottle of wine chilled that you are taking outside for a picnic?

If any of these situations have come up for you as they have for me, one easy solution is to buy a couple of Vacu Vin Rapid Ice Instant Wine Chillers and keep them in your freezer. The Vacu Vin chiller is like a super cold, flexible ice jacket that can chill your wine quickly and keep it relatively cold.

The Vacu Vin ads say that it chills a wine bottle in five minutes and keeps it cold for three hours. I decided to quantify that a bit and see for myself.

I did a test on a bottle of white wine that was sitting on a wine rack at 70 degrees F (determined by my handy VinTemp that Kori posted about on October 6). After ten minutes in a Vacu Vin chiller, the temperature of the wine was down to 50 degrees F, which is an ideal serving temperature for a dry white wine. An hour later, it was at 55 degrees which is still within the ideal serving temperature range.

Another bottle I pulled out of the fridge was 40 degrees F which is actually colder than ideal. Nevertheless, I put a Vacu Vin chiller on it to see if it would hold the temperature, and after one hour, it was still at 40 degrees. It appears from my limited test that it does a better job of just keeping wine cold than it does when you ask it to both chill the wine and keep it cold.

I’ve had my Vacu Vin Rapid Ice Instant Wine Chillers for over five years and have used them repeatedly. As you read above, they still do a good job. You can buy the Vacu Vin chillers in many wine shops from $10-$15 each or order online from Amazon for $9.99.

Have you used these Vacu Vin chillers? If so, how have they worked for you?


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Reader's Comments

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