Austria: Making Wine Into Ice Water

What’s to be done with millions of gallons of wine spiked with antifreeze? The Austrian Ministry of Agriculture has wrestled with that question for more than a year since it seized several warehouses of white wine that vintners and dealers had illegally sweetened with diethylene glycol, an antifreeze component. Pouring the stuff into a river or out onto the ground would only poison the water table and outrage Austria’s watchful environmentalists.

Now Toni Kahlbacher, a Kitzbuhel snowplow maker, seems to have found a use for the tainted tipple. Kahlbacher mixed the wine with road salt to produce a concoction that melts ice more effectively than salt alone. That should delight both Agriculture officials and the Ministry of Public Construction, which estimates that clearing winter roads will take a third less salt thanks to the polluted wine.