Q. I accidentally left some wine in the back of my car overnight, and the temperatures outside dropped below freezing. I know that overheating is bad for wine, but what about over-chilling?

A. Over-chilling is not good, but not quite as bad as wine that has been "cooked" in summer heat (all too often a problem in Eastern Washington). Cooked wine is almost certainly ruined. Wine that has been subjected to temperatures around the freezing point, however, may yet survive. The reason? Wine has alcohol in it, and alcohol moves the freezing point lower. Although wine is mostly water, and the water will begin to crystallize at its own freezing point, the actual wine spends quite a lot of time in the slush stage before it freezes solidly enough to push the cork.

A variety of online sources suggest that depending upon the alcohol and sugar content of the wine, it will reach that critical freezing point around 15 degrees F to 20 degrees F. I've left wines in the freezer a bit too long, found them slushy and then thawed them out. They are perfectly drinkable, but their flavors seem somewhat disjointed.

I wouldn't attempt to cellar a wine that had been through this slushy phase -- drink it up. However, if the temperatures overnight were right around 32 degrees F and your corks were still sound (e.g. still intact and fully sealed) the odds are that your wines have survived as well. Open one right away to test, and if it tastes fine, you can probably trust the rest.

* Paul Gregutt can be reached at wine@seattletimes.com.