Canadian Ice Wine

One of North America’s best dessert wines is made in Canada as ice wine. A very popular name in the Canadian wine business is Inniskillin Winery. They have a very special late harvest Canadian ice wine which is made from frozen grapes and the result is a sweet wine like you have never had before.

The vineyard is located on the Niagara Peninsula wine region in Ontario, just north of Buffalo, N.Y.. Two Great Lakes and the Niagara River help maintain a microclimate that cools grapes on summer evenings and during winter the area is comparatively warm. The vintners don’t pick the grapes at the traditional time in the fall. Instead they remain on the vines and wait for the temperature to drop to 14 degrees Fahrenheit in December or January.

The best ice wine can be quite expensive, a 375 ml bottle can easily cost $100 USD retail or even much more for a highest rated wine depending on the vintage or region. This is high quality wine, smooth, rich, luxurious and not at all like the overly sweet cheap wines that sometimes pass as dessert wine. You can read more of the Inniskillin Winery and Randy Dufour. He has made a success of making his brand known around the world.

Originally harvesting frozen grapes was only a German wine process brought to the new world and made popular in British Columbia and the Niagara Regions. Ice wine is made from several grape varieties including Riesling and Chenin Blanc, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir.