In today's ultra-competitive wine market, carving out your niche on the international wine stage can be tougher than making fine wine. For some Canadian producers, the key to the stage door may well be a wine style we do better than anyone else.
Cold, harsh winter weather has always benefited wine growers in this country, acting as the perfect, natural pesticide. But the freezing temperatures that blanket our vineyards most winters yield a much richer reward - the sweet elixir we call icewine.
Icewine, or eiswein, as its German originators termed it, is a highly flavoured, intensely sweet wine. By regulation, icewine must be produced exclusively from grapes that have been harvested while frozen on the vine, and pressed in a continuous process at a minimum air temperature of -8°C.
If the principle behind icewine production is exceedingly easy, attaining the result is anything but. The grapes are left to hang on the vine until long after a normal fall harvest. In fact, they cannot be picked until temperatures plunge to the aforementioned minimum -8°C, although most winemakers prefer temperatures in the -11 to -14°C range.
The winemaking procedure involves picking frozen grapes, or "marbles" as they are sometimes called, and then crushing them while they are still frozen. At this point, the grape's water content is in the form of ice and is discarded easily. What's left, and it isn't much, is concentrated grape sugar that, when fermented, yields the much-coveted icewine nectar.
Of course, you can't make icewine without an obligatory cold snap, and this is where the risk begins. An icewine harvest seldom starts before December. In many cases, it can take until January or February before the minimum picking temperatures blanket the vineyard.
During this period, any number of natural weather catastrophes can beset the grapes, from rain and rot, to ice and snow, to an unhelpful daily freezing and thawing cycle, not to mention predatory birds, bears, coyotes and deer. All of which explain why the juice yielded at harvest (often in the dead of night) commands top dollar in the bottle.
The rules alone eliminate most competition, with the exception of Germany and nearby Austria, where eiswein is made under similarly strict laws and, weather permitting, about three times every decade. The bad news for Europe is Canada, east and west, is able to produce the elusive elixir almost every year.
I love the elegance of Riesling-based ice-wine over all other contenders, but it is purely a matter of taste preference, not a quality judgment. Consumers seem to prefer more variety and producers are granting their wish. Pinot blanc, ehrenfelser, chardonnay, vidal, pinot noir, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and more have all been frozen on the vine with great success.
Where and when to pour icewine and with what is less contentious. Personally, I like to serve it in the same manner the Bordelais serve sauterne: before dinner, with foie gras-inspired appetizers. For the majority of you who will serve it with dessert, my only caution is to make sure the dessert is not as sweet as the wine. Fresh fruit and cake-like desserts are a great match, and pouring icewine over ice cream is a simple but decadent ending to any dinner.
Anthony Gismondi is a globetrotting wine writer and editor-in-chief of Calgary-based Wine Access
magazine.
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