![]() This leaves a time-frame of just a few hours in the middle of the night for the grapes to be handpicked and pressed. At this temperature, the grapes are frozen enough to remain frozen throughout picking and pressing, but not so frozen that the press cannot crush them, or that the weight suffocates the yeast. When the ice wine harvest comes around, growers are constantly checking weather forecasts to be able to seize the optimal temperature for picking grapes, which is around two continuous nights of -12☏. Ice wine is produced in the middle of the night, in the dead of winter. And if that ice can be removed fast enough during pressing, you’re left with pure grape without any water, meaning the natural sugar content is extremely high. It makes sense – harvesting frozen grapes in the middle of winter means that any of the grape’s remaining water content is also frozen, as ice. Freezing the grapes allows for the easy removal of any remaining water. By picking grapes in the freezing temperatures of December, ice wine is an extreme form of late harvest wine the grapes dehydrate over time, which concentrates their sugar content as they gradually lose water. ![]() The grapes are left on the vine until well after the September harvest. There are two reasons why ice wine is so sweet: Ice wine is somewhat of a treat in the world of sweet wines, mainly because of its novelty, but also because of the difficulties involved with the ice wine harvest (more on that later). It’s usually served as a dessert wine, either with food or by itself. Ice wine is a sweet delicacy wine produced mainly in Canada and Germany. ![]() Only then, in the dead of night, is when the ice wine harvest begins. Harvesting ice wine is a delicate balancing act, with the grapes being left on the vine until the peak of winter, when temperatures drop to well below freezing.
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