No Ice Wine from Canada this year?

by Jonathan M. Forester, Posted Jan 9th 2007 @ 3:03PM

Just a few weeks ago I wrote about Ice Wine, nicknamed Canada's Liquid Gold, that luscious and intense dessert wine produced from grapes that freeze on their vines. It was much to my horror to hear that it is possible that there will be no Ice Wine from Canada this year!

Canada produces some of the best Ice Wines in the world. Normally the grapes are harvested during a freeze some time between mid-November and the end of December. Due to the mild winter this year. as of early January there have been no freezes cold enough for harvesting in any of the vineyards in Canada or neighboring US this winter. I was amazed to hear this because of all the news about blizzards and avalanches in Colorado, but then I thought about my local NY City weather where we are having the warmest winter, with no snow fall, since the late 1800's. Call it global warming, long term weather cycles, what you will, but No Ice Wine?

I can rarely afford Ice Wines as it is, but with none available this year prices are going to go up. What's even worse is that even with the high prices of the Ice Wines, they are still a very risky business for wine makers to produce. A season with a complete lack of Ice Wine may put several wine makers on the brink of disaster.

All isn't lost as of now. All we need is a drop in temperature to below -8°C/18°F for a few nights in the wine regions and the grapes can be harvested. If this happens we may even see some of the best Ice Wines coming from Canada ever, due to the long, slow development of the grapes over so many months on their vines. I am pretty certain that if the weather doesn't cooperate in the next few weeks then the vineyards will harvest the partially dried grapes even without a freeze and make them into dessert wine. Legally they won't be able to be called Ice Wines. Instead they will have to be labeled Late Harvest wines and the flavor profile may be a bit different, but they will still be able to make sweet wine. If that's the case I hope that the wines really benefit from their long time on the vine and produce something unusual, that can be labeled as such.

In a worst case scenario the vineyards can also pick and artificially freeze the grapes, but again, they can't be called Ice Wine, and many people disagree with making them that way.

The wine makers really don't deserve to lose a crop after the past few decades they have spent building up such a quality wine from practically nothing just thirty years ago. So keep your fingers crossed that we get a nice spell of cold weather in the next few weeks. I know my fingers are crossed so hard they are getting bruised.

Note: I want to update this post with information that it is Eastern Canada that is having the mild winter this year. Western Canada, specifically British Columbia is having a great winter and producing Ice Wines better than the past few years. It seems that Western Canada has had a few bad years with mild winters lately so the switch is on and we'll have to see if it all evens out.

Filed Under: Did you know?, Drink Recipes
Tags: 2006, 2007, canada, did you know, ice wine, IceWine, mild winter, MildWinter, no ice wine, north america, wine

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

1-09-2007 @5:34PM Beanie said... Having had both Ice Wine and Late Harvest, from both Canada's Niagara Region and the Finger Lakes Region of NYS, I wouldn't discount the Late Harvests as a lesser product. In fact, both as a matter of taste and the pocketbook, I find the late harvests from Inniskillin to be an outstanding selection, in some cases outperforming the far more expensive ice wines.
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1-09-2007 @6:03PM Jen said... I'd beg you fine slashfooders to not adopt the incorrect Ontario-centric viewpoint that so many others do when it comes to assessing Canada.

British Columbia is home to a huge number of wineries, producers of Canadian grown and bottled wine, including a large selection of award winning ice-wines.

I'll point you to an article showing that in BC it CERTAINLY got cold enough to freeze the grapes, and then some, and our grapes were harvested already in late November.

http://community.winepressnw.com/node/246

It's unfortunate that the Niagara region is facing some unkindness from the weather gods this season - but perhaps if you find a shortage of your favourite Ontario Ice Wine, you'll pick up a bottle of the BC Produced stuff and enjoy it just as much (if not better).--------------------Sorry about that, as a New Yorker, and someone with relatives in Ontario, I do tend to focus less on the Western half of Canada. I am glad to hear that there will be Ice Wines coming out of BC this winter. --JMF--
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