Canadian ice wine is sweet, fragrant and elegant. It is known as the nectar given by God to human beings in winter. Ice wine is the most representative wine in Canada. The status of ice wine in Canada’s wine industry is as prominent as totem, and Canada has become a synonym of ice wine in the global wine market. What makes Canadian ice wine so unique?
(a) Timing:
The VQA states that the grapes used to make the ice wine must be harvested after November 15, while the grapes are normally picked every September to October, so the grapes need to be left hanging after ripening to wait for the cold winter to come, allowing natural weathering and freezing to concentrate the sugar and essence. But the annual cold snap doesn’t always arrive as expected, usually delayed for a while on Nov. 15.
-8 ℃: The natural temperature for picking ice grapes must be -8 ℃. In some warm winter years, when the ideal low temperatures do not arrive, hanging fruit for too long can cause grapes to fall off or become infected with mold and rot. However, in extremely cold years, exceptionally strong cold current will bring the temperature down to below -12 ℃, which will cause the frozen grapes to be too hard, or the grape juice and sugar extracted will be too high, which will bring difficulties for crushing and fermentation. So, the production of ice wine is a gamble with nature.
3 a.m.: Harvesting takes place between 3 a.m. and 10 a.m., to ensure timely juicing of grapes frozen at -8 ℃. If you hesitate, the water that forms the ice crystals will melt, and all your previous efforts will be wasted. You can’t squeeze out the thick, pure grape juice. When the right weather is on the way, the winery’s farmers are on standby, ready to harvest the grapes late at night in the freezing cold.
(2) Geography
Niagara is located at latitude 43 degrees North — the world’s recognized “golden zone” for wine production, and some of the world’s top wine regions, such as Toscana in Italy and Provence in France, are in this latitude. Sufficient sunshine time, significant temperature difference between day and night, and less rainfall make the grapes ripe with complex and rich flavor, suitable for the production of high-quality wine.
Soil: The soil of the Niagara Peninsula contains a large number of irregular pebbles due to the influence of the historical glacial lake. The land was submerged in the glacial lake for a long time. When the glacial lake period passed, the land was covered with a layer of permeable sand. Now this land is mainly composed of shale sandstone and sandy soil and gravel, which is very suitable for grape cultivation.
3~ 12km: Ice wine grapes are harvested two to three months later than normal. During this time, proper humidity is required to ensure that the grapes remain fresh without turning into raisins or mildew while being moderately dehydrated. The best ice wineries in Canada are located in Niagara Peninsula, 3~12 kilometers away from the Lake of Ontario, within 3 kilometers, the excessive moisture is easy to cause the mildew of grapes; Within 12 kilometers, due to the lack of water vapor, grapes tend to be dehydrated to dry.
Niagara Bluffs: The 300-meter-high Niagara Bluffs cut across the southern part of the peninsula, causing moderate lake winds from Southern Ontario to flow back over the peninsula and keep out the cold current from the north. This prevents Niagara from being as cold in winter as it is at the same latitude. In the early winter, the grapes will freeze slightly at night and wake up when exposed to the sunshine during the day. During freezing and melting, the pulp of the grapes will be pulsed. During grape pressing, the refined ingredients can be separated out better, thus producing excellent ice wine.
(3) People
VQA: Ontario has established the VQA system, which has set a series of extremely strict management standards for the brewing of ice wine: the temperature of picking and pressing should not exceed -8℃; The picking time must be in the early hours of the night; Grape juice berry sugar content must be above 35 degrees; Residual sugar must reach 125 g/l… Only when this standard is strictly implemented can the wine be certified by VQA, which must be scrupulously enforced by ice wine producers.
Winemaker: Niagara is home to some of the world’s best ice wine makers, such as Karl Kaiser and Sue-Annstaff.
Natural method: The vineyards here mostly adopt organic cultivation. For example, the grapes grown in Pillitteri winery must not use any pesticides or fertilizers. They believe that any unnatural chemical additives will greatly affect the quality of grapes, and the collection of its ice grapes still follows the most traditional manual picking. This is not an approach that can be easily replicated by large-scale commercial production and machine work.
Vidal Blanc
The Vidal Blanc is a white grape that was obtained by crossing Sebel blanc and Ugniblanc, and is native to France. Resistant to drought and cold, salt-tolerant, well-developed root system and sunshine, The Vidal Blanc has very strict requirements on the region, hydrology, climate and soil: the temperature in spring, summer and autumn should be warm enough, and the winter should be cold enough to grow in the region of 38 degrees to 42 degrees north latitude. Mature slowly but steadily, thick skin, easy to reproduce and rich in fruit juice, suitable for making expensive rot wine or ice wine. Although it originated in France, now it is almost extinct in France. Due to its strong resistance to cold, it is widely cultivated in Canada and has become an iconic grape variety in Canada. Vidal Blanc is very adapted to the cold, but the ice wine produced is not rich and delicate aroma, high acid wine, wine taste slightly flat and wine has a thin feeling. The aroma is very intense, often with apricot and honey and another sweet ripe aroma. Taste like sweet fragrance and then turn to fresh delicious feeling. It has good firmness and is the main variety of ice wine.