The Fruit Growers News - September 2001


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Vidal Grapes Made into Prized Icewine in Ontario

By Jeffrey Carter Ontario Correspondent
To say that the “nectar of the gods” is distilled upon windswept, frozen fields in the southern extremes of Ontario strikes close to the mark. Ontario icewine - prized around the world - is harvested and pressed when temperatures fall well below freezing. Icewine production in Ontario is just a small part of the province’s tiny wine industry but its success year after year has made Canada the world’s largest producer of icewine. “It’s the flagship wine of the region,” says Matthew Speck, the grower at Henry of Pelham Estate Winery near Niagara Falls. “The nature of making icewine is there’s a limit of how much you can make; it’s a fairly labor intensive process.” Most Ontario icewine is made from the Vidal grape, a cross between European and North American white grape varieties. Normally used to produce a table wine, Vidal yields well. It also has a relatively thick skin, enabling the grape clusters to withstand the elements and disease. Reisling, a vinifera, is the grape of choice in Germany and Austria for icewine production and it’s also used extensively to make icewine in Ontario. While quality is subjective in nature, Reisling is generally considered to be a more elegant grape than Vidal and is somewhat more fragile. Red grapes are seldom used for icewine production, but Pelee Island Winery devoted a small part of its Cabernet Franc acreage on Pelee Island for icewine last year. Pelee Island winemaker Martin Janz, judging from acidity and sugar tests and by personally sampling of the juice, feels the harvest of frozen Cabernet Franc grapes last fall may make for a “big” icewine. As with all wines, quality begins and ends with the grape. The German-trained winemaker Janz explains: “You can only keep the quality that you begin with and there’s a lot of things that can go wrong during fermentation and during the racking and filtration.” The primary challenge is to produce grapes that are sufficiently ripe and to keep the crop in the field until temperatures drop to minus -8 degrees C or lower before harvesting. Speck, who won Ontario’s grape growing award for the year 2000, uses special pruning and trellising systems to keep the Reisling grapes that are destined for icewine production at Henry of Pelham from becoming overly ripe. There’s less thinning of grape clusters and the canopy is slightly heavier. Sal D’Angelo, another award winning grower and owner of D’Angelo Estate Winery, does not take special steps to encourage a heavier canopy but he does thin less to produce icewine from Vidal grapes. D’Angelo, whose vineyards are located just minutes away from Detroit in the southwestern corner of Ontario, uses the Scott Henry trellising system that was developed in Oregon. Like other systems employed where season length is an issue, it’s designed to provide maximum leaf exposure to the sun. The vines are then netted and growers and winemakers must then be patient until freezing temperatures arrive. These came early to Niagara’s wine region last year allowing the harvest to begin in late November, but typically growers have to wait until the last half of December or early January before they can harvest. It can be a nerve-wracking process. The longer the grapes remain on the vine, the greater chance there is that they’ll fall to the ground and be lost. The netting helps catch the grape clusters but its primary purposes is to keep birds from eating the crop. This is a huge consideration for all of Ontario’s wineries. “The birds are the biggest issue,” says Speck. “Although the vines are netted, we have starlings that flock in mid-December. There are tens of thousands of them. They’ll clean the crop right out if you let them.” Both Speck and D’Angelo have seen birds use their collective mass to push up against the netting so that they reach through the netting to the grapes. D’Angelo has seen birds hop along the top of the netting, looking for any small entrance. Once a single bird finds a way in, many more will follow, he says. The harvest, when it finally arrives, requires many hands. For the 10 acres of vines devoted to icewine production at Henry of Pelham, as many as 30 workers are recruited. Speck says the harvest typically begins around 10 p.m. when temperatures fall sufficiently and continues until shortly after sunrise. The volume of wine that can be made from the frozen grapes typically ranges from 10 to 15% of what might have been expected had the grapes been picked at the standard harvest time. Pressing takes place outdoors as the harvest proceeds. The light pressure used creates enough heat to melt the sugars and acids but most of the water, in the form of ice shards, is left behind. The resulting liquid should have a brix reading of 35 or higher. The high sugar content results in a slow fermentation that is halted, according to the judgement of the winemaker, when the alcohol content of the wine reaches anywhere from 9-13%. Bottling can take place nine or 10 months after the onset of fermentation. The use of small amounts of sulphite along with micro-filtering prevents renewed fermentation from taking place in the bottle. Icewine is a totally natural, unadulterated product. In comparison, most inexpensive sweet wines are simply made by adding sugar at the end of fermentation. Other higher quality sweet wines, such as Madeira, are made from grapes grown in hot climate regions where the sugar content in grapes is naturally high but acidity levels tend to be low. Icewines combine the qualities of high sugar and high acidity and that’s considered to be an asset. Also of benefit is the mysterious chemical process that occurs between grape and vine when the grapes are left well past the standard harvest period. A product similar to icewine can be made by artificially freezing grapes at or shortly after the standard harvest time but this results in an inferior product, according to most experts. The experience of icewine involves much more than its sweetness. There’s a complex blend of flavors that fill the mouth and lingers well after the time your glass is empty. Pelee Island Winery, for instance, describes its 1998 icewine as having “the aroma of apricots and peaches” and the taste of “peach and apricot... with a hint of toffee.” “The sugars, acidity, aromas, and flavors are all concentrated,” Janz explains. “It’s truly a rare experience.” Icewine was discovered in 1794, according to archival records, in Franconia, a part of present-day Germany. There had been an early frost that year but instead of despairing, the peasants from the region made wine from the frozen grapes. They were pleasantly surprised. Today, it might be argued that the amount of hype that surrounds icewine outweighs its value but sales are brisk. Canada is the biggest market. A close second is the Far East. Japanese businessmen visiting Canada will often purchase one or several bottles of icewine as gifts before leaving for their homeland. Icewine prices are a bargain in Canada compared to prices in Japan. Icewine production has been formally standardized between Austria, Germany, and Canada although Canadian icewine producers have long been meeting accepted practices. With climatic factors and market conditions on their side, Ontario’s producers of ice wine should have a bright future.