Dessert Wine - Ice Wine

Ice Wine

Most wine laws require temperatures below at most −7 °C (19 °F) before the grapes for ice wine can be picked. At such temperatures, some of the water in the grapes freezes out, but the sugars and other solids remain dissolved in the remaining juice. If the grapes are pressed whilst frozen, a very concentrated must can result, which needs special yeast and a long time to ferment. The resulting wines are very sweet, but with lots of balancing acidity. The minuscule yields mean they tend to be very expensive. The most famous ice wines are German Eiswein and Canadian Icewine, but apart from these, ice wine is also made in the United States, Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary,Italy, Australia, France and New Zealand in smaller quantities.