Ice Wine

You all lucked out. I wrote another boring political opinion post regarding Rumsfield's "new kind of fascism" comment. But I deleted it. In it's place, I came up with this.

So what is the big deal with the Ice Wine you ask? Why was my one and only duty free alcohol purchase on the cruise ship ice wine? Lets find out!

Ice Wine can only be produced in a few places in the world. The largest producer of ice wine in the world is Canada. Ice Wines are also made in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Russia.

So what makes them so special, and why can't ice wine be produced in California's Sonoma Valley?

The reason is because special conditions MUST be met for a wine to be an ice wine. The grapes must ripen and freeze on the vine. Naturally. Not in a freezer. In Canada, by law, the grapes must be harvested at -7 Celsius (or lower) to be ice wine. But if they are too cold, the grapes can break the presses. So when the air temperature hits -7, the harvesters must work quickly.

When the grapes freeze on the vine, the water turns into ice crystals. The grapes are then harvested, by hand so there is no machinery to defrost them - and then pressed. All while still frozen. The result is a few drops of super concentrated grape juice. Most of the water in the grape is left in the press. For ice wine production, the press is exposed to the cold so as to not defrost the grapes.

The concentrated juice is then fermented very slowly. When the fermentation stops, the resulting wine is still very sweet. It is then filtered and bottled.

As you can imagine, this presents a problem to wine producers. Plant the grapes too late and they freeze before they are ripe. Plant too early and the crop rots on the vine, or the producer is forced to harvest early and just make regular wine. This is why only a few countries can make the stuff. You have to be in a place where the transition from summer to winter happens FAST. You need the warmer weather to grow and ripen the grapes, then a snap freeze that hits quickly but not too hard. And you must be able to predict when the freeze will take place so you know when to plant!

Unfrozen, a producer can expect a single grape vine to produce a bottle of wine. Once the grapes are frozen, that same vine may produce but a single glass of wine. Many more grapes are needed to make a bottle of ice wine than are required for a bottle of table wine.

For all these reasons, Ice Wine tends to be more expensive than table wine. It is often sold in half bottles (375 mL). In Asia, bottles can go for as much as $300. In Canada you can get a bottle for about $45 (I think that figure is in US Dollars). I got my bottle for around $50 on the cruise ship. It was bottled in 2002 from Vidal grapes. I found it on the internet for $75 plus shipping. I got a pretty good deal.

I bought the last bottle on the ship. I did not even enter a duty free shop till Sunday (almost the end of the cruise). If I would have gone sooner I would have bought at least two bottles. The stuff is not easy to find in Miami - I would probably have to special order it and pay a premium price.

Ill let you all know how the stuff is when I open it.