Duane's Wine Blog

As promised in last week’s post, this one will be all about my favorite dessert wine. Yes, that means the Wine of the Month for February is Canadian Icewine, specifically Inniskillin (Vidal or Cabernet Franc). I will, towards the end of this blog, talk about a few other excellent vintners of Canadian Icewine. Both of these can be bought at Clinton Wine & Spirits and probably most other wine stores, as it is the most exported. But be warned, icewine is NOT CHEAP! A skinny 375 ml bottle (more about that later) will cost at least $70-80, if not more; putting it in Reggie III’s price range.

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As mentioned in Blog Post #24, there are many different types of sweet “dessert” wine and each major wine producing country seems to have its own preference. One of them is Canadian Icewine, my favorite! They didn’t even invent icewine, the German’s did. But, German “icewine” is called Eiswein and almost always comes from Riesling grapes (hence Riesling Eiswein). I will save further discussion about German Einswein until I cover Germany in a later Education blog. Most Canadian Icewine is made from either the Vidal grape or the Cab Franc grape and Vidal is much more common, thus easier to find. What makes icewine unique is that the grapes are FROZEN on the vine, picked in January, and then squeezed to deliver a very small amount of juice (hence the skinny, expensive bottle). Because it’s picked so late, this wine always has a very high sugar content, measured in Brix. One degree of Brix is equal to one gram of sugar in a 100 ml solution. Most Canadian icewine is somewhere between 35-39 degrees of Brix.

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As far as tasting notes goes, both mine and Inniskillin’s, this wine is very sweet (272 grams of residual sugar). The Vidal has “ripe peaches and apricots on the nose with overtones of marmalade and candied brown sugar. With intense fruit flavors on the palate, the wine’s ample natural acidity is softened with a creamy vanilla note afforded by oak aging“[Inniskillin]. The Cab Franc “shows an abundance of rhubarb, and raspberry aromatics, with plenty of flavors of cherry, and strawberries and cream” [Inniskillin]. Either goes well with most desserts, especially those you might get in a restaurant (like creme brulee, chocolate mousse, NY cheesecake, etc.). As I said before, Inniskillin is the most exported, and therefore the easiest to find. However, you may also run across Peller, Jackson-Triggs, Konzelmann, or Reif; all of which are excellent Icewines. I strongly recommend you try a glass with dessert the next time you’re at a restaurant that has icewine, you won’t regret it!

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That should be enough for this one. Next week’s post will be an Education blog and I will start breaking down the many wine regions of Italy. Be sure to check it out. Cheers!