Winter wheat is planted in the autumn and must survive the winter months before being harvested the following summer. Winterhardiness is therefore of paramount importance to the survival of the crop. This chapter reviews recent advances in our understanding of the transcriptomic and genetic basis of the wheat plants’ response to low, above-freezing temperatures and to sub-freezing temperatures. We show that wheat plants enact numerous transcriptomic and metabolic networks in response to low temperatures, and that the response is exquisitely tied to the nature of the cold stress, the developmental status of the plant, the part of the plant and the time of day of the onset of low temperature.