AH, WINE. The warmth of the sun. The smell of the fruit. Barefoot peasants stomping on warm, luscious grapes. Yeah, well, not in Canada. Here, in the land where hockey is played on skates and dogs pull sleds, winemaking is just another survival sport. We do it in the freezing cold. In the middle of the night. There鈥檚 no sweat and passion, just ice crystals on eyelashes and frozen toes. We wear mitts and hats and snow suits. But the results are worth it. We call it 鈥渋ce wine鈥�.
Ice wine is an intensely sweet drink, usually served as a dessert wine. Long after most grapes have been pressed and bottled, fruit intended for ice wine lingers on the vine, freezing and thawing and slowly dehydrating. When the grapes are finally pressed on a freezing cold winter鈥檚 night, the water is driven out as shards of ice and discarded with the grape skins. What is left is a highly concentrated juice, bursting with sugars, acids and the phenolic compounds that give wine its flavour and aroma.
Truth be told, ice wine was probably invented by German monks more than 200 years ago. In the autumn of 1794, the story goes, a cold snap froze grapes on the vine before they could be harvested. Reluctant to forgo a season of intoxication, the plucky brothers picked the frozen fruit and fermented it anyway. Thus Eiswein was born.
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The trouble with ice wine鈥檚 founding nation is that it doesn鈥檛 get that cold very often 鈥� only about once every seven years or so. Other regions have the opposite problem: their winters get so cold they emaciate the fruit and kill the vines. Enter the Niagara region of southern Ontario, currently the world鈥檚 top producer of ice wines both in volume and, arguably, quality. It enjoys the very hot summers and cold, but not glacial, winters that a good ice wine demands, and you can pretty much count on it year after year.
Officially, ice-wine grapes can only be harvested when frozen solid. Ontario鈥檚 Vintners Quality Alliance says it has to be -8 掳C or below, while the world鈥檚 official wine body, the International Office of Vine and Wine (OIV), stipulates -7 掳C or below. Both are adamant that grapes have to be frozen naturally, out of doors and on the vine. Tossing the berries in the freezer 鈥� 鈥渃ryoextraction鈥� 鈥� is cheating.
Still, figuring out exactly when to start picking is a bit like knowing when to go to hospital when you鈥檙e in labour. Matthew Speck, manager of the Henry of Pelham vineyard in St Catharines, Ontario, says that once winter sets in he watches the weather obsessively. He has set up a thermometer right in the middle of his Riesling patch 鈥� Riesling is a favourite variety for ice wine because it is hardy and naturally high in acids and so balances out the sweetness 鈥� that uploads temperature readings to a website, so that when the nights get cold he can check the temperature hourly by simply padding across his bedroom in his pyjamas.
The target temperature varies slightly from maker to maker. What Speck is on the lookout for is a night where the temperature plummets to 鈭�9 掳C and stays there. If it starts to look promising he readies himself and his work crew. 鈥淚 call all the pickers and put them on notice,鈥� he says. If the mercury hits the magic number, he will drive over and check the grapes manually, pressing them between his fingers to make sure they are as hard as marbles, and maybe popping one in his mouth to make sure it is sweet enough.
The low temperature is essential for maximum sweetness. The colder the grapes get, the higher the sugar content of the juice squeezed out of them will be. Sugar content is another detail that has to be just right. By regulation, ice-wine grapes must have a minimum sugar content of 35掳 Brix 鈥� that鈥檚 35 grams of sugar in every 100 grams of grape juice. A table-wine grape, by contrast, might rate at only 20掳 Brix. At 鈭�8 掳C, the grapes will usually be sweet enough. Below 鈭�13 掳C you can鈥檛 get any juice out of them at all.
If the grapes are suitably solid and sweet and the night looks set to stay frigid, Speck takes the plunge and calls out his pickers. 鈥淧eople say they are interested. But when they get the call at two in the morning, they are not so excited,鈥� he laments. 鈥淵ou call 30 and you get 15.鈥� And that鈥檚 despite nearly doubling the hourly pay to lure them from their beds. But having harvested frozen grapes himself for over a decade, he understands the less-than-enthusiastic response. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 windy and there is no snow cover, it鈥檚 not a lot of fun,鈥� he admits. 鈥淣ot that it鈥檚 ever a lot of fun.鈥�
鈥淔un鈥�, in fact, is not a word that comes up much when describing the experience of picking grapes in sub-zero temperatures in the middle of the night. 鈥淚t鈥檚 simply miserable,鈥� says Sue-Ann Staff, the winemaster at Pillitteri Estates in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Most sane people would rather stay in their cosy beds, she says, and these days, most sane people do.
That was not so in the headiness of the first few years. Ice wine was first produced in Ontario in the early 1980s, and back then ordinary folk were keen to have a hand in making it. Wine connoisseurs and journalists, housewives and office workers all volunteered their services in exchange for a bottle of the sweet stuff. These days, though, experienced pickers bring in the harvest, and volunteers are humoured at faux picking 鈥渆vents鈥�.
The reality of an ice-wine harvest is singularly lacking in glamour or intrigue. There is no midnight passion, no true confessions 鈥� not even the camaraderie you would expect in the average snow storm. 鈥淭here鈥檚 not a lot of talking,鈥� says Staff. 鈥淧eople are pretty focused to get the job done.鈥� Even the romantic notion of toiling under the stars to gentle sounds of the night is shattered by the stadium lighting, generators and tractors hauling frozen fruit to and fro.
Some vineyards haul their presses into the great outdoors, others throw open massive doors and let the cold air in. For the frozen grapes have to be pressed right there and then to ensure the juice is thick and sweet. It takes much higher pressure 鈥� about 6 bar as compared to the normal 1.5 to 2 鈥� to crush frozen grapes. 鈥淚t sounds like there are stones inside,鈥� says Staff. Rock-solid grapes, she confides, have ruined three good presses so far.
The sugar levels in ice wine make it hard to get the yeast to ferment, says Staff. So whereas a table wine takes roughly a week to ferment, ice wine takes from two to six months. Once it is in the bottle, though, the flavours are positively transporting. Grapes picked in January and bottled at the end of July might produce a wine tasting of pears and apples in the early autumn and citrus by Christmas. Wait a little longer and it turns tropical, with notes of lychee and mango. That鈥檚 a long way indeed from a cold winter鈥檚 night in Ontario.