Cold as Ice

Another loss the other night to Rio Grande Valley. Like Iowa, they are unreasonably good, so I was not particularly depressed at the outcome. The rough part of this game, rather, was that a winter storm descended upon Fort Wayne, causing radio stations to say things like, "there is nothing going on tonight that you should be on the roads for. Stay home." Perfect. Thanks for that. Fortunately, we still had quite a few hardy souls who braved the weather to get to the Coliseum to see RGV systematically dismantle us.

Result and crowd aside, the brutal weather inspired me to write about a wine that holds a very unique niche in the wine world: ice wine. Ice wine is a member of the dessert wine family, along with late harvest wines, botrytis wines and an assortment of other wines with a high residual sugar (the sugar left in the wine after fermentation) content. All of these wines are delicious when served as dessert, but ice wine is particularly coveted by wine drinkers.

Ice wine is made when white grapes (often Vidal grapes) are left on the vine until the first hard freeze occurs, sometimes several weeks or even several months after other grapes are harvested. Two major things occur when grapes are left on the vines so long. First, ripening grapes produce sugar, meaning that the longer the grapes are left on the vine, the higher their sugar content. This is why "late harvest" wines are also classified as dessert wines. Second, and more unique to ice wines, the hard freeze causes all of the water in the grape to freeze, meaning that pressing the grapes produces a more concentrated juice that is akin to liquid sugar.

As simple and romantic as that explanation is, the truth is that producing ice wine is fraught with financial peril for the winemaker. If a freeze does not come soon enough, the grapes may rot on the vine, meaning the potential loss of an entire vintage for a winery. Of course, as with wineries that use cork, the risk of loss is passed along to you in the form of outrageous prices for many ice wines. Indignation aside, I believe that ice wines are worth every penny and I will go out of my way to get my hands on them.

Although I have not yet blogged much about wine and food pairing, it is important to highlight my comment from the opening paragraph that sweet wines are delicious when served as dessert. Sweet wines are a great way to wash down a meal, but their sweetness does not make for good pairing with sweet desserts. The combination of residual sugar, naturally sweet alcohol and acidity ends up clashing with the dessert's sweetness and neither the wine nor the dessert will show their best.