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You're thirsty and all you have is warm wine. Fortunately you don't have to wait hours for a cool, crisp and refreshing glass.
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Mike Supple: You're watching Screw It on SuppleWine. I'm your host, Mike Supple.

Your friends will be over in about 20 minutes and you don't have any bottles of wine or Champagne in the fridge. Are you destined to sit around staring at each other for hours as your bottles cool? Fortunately not.

Chilling wine in the fridge can take several hours, and the freezer even takes close to an hour, not to mention the added risk of a frozen and exploding bottle of wine. To chill your bottle in about 10 - 20 minutes all you need is a bucket, some ice and water.

Fill the bucket most of the way with ice, then add water and stuff the bottle down in. You might need to remove some ice to make sure the bottle is fully submerged. Water is important because it helps maintain a constant temperature around the bottle.

If you just have a bucket of ice, the pockets of air around the ice are warmer than the ice itself, thus slowing the cooling process.

If you have other things to do before your friends arrive, just let the wine sit in the bucket and it will be cool in about 20 minutes.

To speed up your cooling process, spin the bottle in the bucket. This moves the wine around and puts more of it in contact with the cold glass bottle, chilling the wine faster. Spinning the bottle constantly can reduce your chilling time down to 10 minutes, but you can also give yourself carpal tunnel, so spin wisely.

If you choose to spin a bottle of Champagne, be aware that the constant agitation will make it more volatile when opening the bottle, so an added measure of caution is wise lest you pop the cork and shoot sparkling wine all over your guests.

If this still isn't fast enough for you, adding a handful of salt to the bucket of ice water will speed up the process. Thanks to science, adding salt lowers the temperature of the ice water. Lower temperatures mean faster wine cooling. If you do add salt, make sure your thoroughly rinse the bottle before opening and pouring so you don't get salt in your wine - you'll only make the mistake of forgetting this once.

So how cold should you get your wine? That is really up to personal preference. Chilling white and sparkling wines generally makes them crisp and more refreshing. However, cooling them also mutes the aromas and flavors. If you spent a lot of money on a bottle of white wine, a slight chill will be better than a deep freeze to make sure you can taste and smell everything you paid for. However, if you have a cheap bottle of plonk, chilling it as much as you can will have the added bonus of muting any bad flavors, making it easier to drink.