09/10/08 Ice Wine

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran and today we are going to continue to discuss what may be going on in the vineyards the fall and explore another sweet wine called Ice Wine. Many of you may have heard the term Ice Wine used to describe any sweet dessert style of wine but it is not just any sweet wine. It is a wine that is made only in vintages when the weather permits. Ice wines are most often made in colder wine regions, climates such as Canada and Germany. We often make them here in Washington state because we can usually rely on the weather to get very cold in the late fall. Ice wine is made by allowing the ripe fruit to hang on the vine until there is a night cold enough to freeze the berry solid. The gamble is leaving the grapes on the vine in hopes of a freeze. The grapes are harvested while frozen  sometimes in the middle of the night  and then pressed, separating the ice crystals, which contain the water, from the fruit sugars and acid. This is the process of true ice wine  the result of natural rather than artificial freezing. The wine is not as scary or risky as making the botrytis affected wine that we discussed yesterday but due to the concentration of fruit juice it is still an intricate act of skilled winemaking and thus it may fetch an equally handsome price for these exotic and delicious wines. Remember to send your wine questions to Linda at vine to wine dot net and thank you for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.