Delicious Ice Wine, Perfect For Celebrating This Winter Season
It’s Winter! What a great time to talk about ICE WINE!It’s Almost Valentine’s Day! And the perfect time to talk about deliciously sweet ICE WINE!
We’re Pinot’s Palette and we are ALL about wine…. We think ANYTIME is the right time to talk about ICE WINE!
Wine, Wine Wine, Wine… :)
Although there are many ways to make sweet wines, none is more extreme than ice wine. From harvest to vinification, ice wine — which is made in extremely cold climates and from grapes that froze on the vine — challenges winemakers’ skills (not to mention their fingertips and other extremities). But with one sip, it’s easy to understand why people go to such lengths to produce this beautiful, delicious wine.
*** Ice Wine Harvesting ***
When you think of the name “Ice Wine” what’s the first thing that comes to mind? We're hoping you said “ice” because you would be right. Ice plays a significant role in the reason that Ice Wine is called ice wine, but the reason may surprise you.
This super sweet wine is supposed to be served chilled, but that’s not why it’s called Ice Wine, the real reason is that the grapes used to produce this wine need to be harvested when they are frozen to the vine. So while most grapes are harvested in the late summer into fall, ice wine grapes are harvested in the middle of winter when they are completely frozen.
Once the grapes are harvested they are immediately brought to the winery for processing. They are put through a grape crusher where they are pressed until the liquid is extracted. Only about 10-20% of the liquid in the frozen grapes is used to great ice wine, and the liquid is extremely sweet, sometimes even sweeter than a can of your favorite soda.
In order to be considered true Ice Wine, the grapes must be naturally frozen outside and cannot be commercially frozen and then crushed. This means that these grapes are grown in very cold climates like Germany, Austria, Canada, and sometimes China. If the grapes are commercially frozen and then used to create wine, the labels are not allowed to say “Ice Wine”, instead you’ll find them called “iced wine” or “dessert wines”. So if you’re looking for true Ice Wine, make sure you read the labels correctly.
*** What Does Ice Wine Taste Like? ***
As we mentioned above, Ice Wine is a very sweet wine. Since the water freezes in the grapes, but the sugars and other dissolved solids do not, it creates a wine that is even sweeter than most sugar-filled sodas. Because of the sweetness of the wine, it is often served as a dessert wine and not something that you would normally order with a meal, however, it can be paired with some softer cheeses if you’re looking for a food pairing.
Ice Wine is designed to be a very fruity-tasting wine to go along with the high sugar and high acidity. It varies in alcohol content, but usually hovers around 10% alcohol, which is typically a little less than traditional table wine, although some sweeter wines can come in at alcohol levels around 6%.