Ice Wine and Eiswein: Sweetness from the Frost
Ice wine is one of the most extreme and beautiful expressions of the vintner's art. It is made from grapes left on the vine deep into winter, picked and pressed while frozen solid, so that the water in each berry stays behind as ice and only the concentrated, sugary, acidic juice is squeezed out. The result is a tiny quantity of intense, sweet, vibrant wine — a wine that is, quite literally, a gamble against the weather.
The principle: freezing as concentration
A ripe grape is mostly water. When the temperature drops below about minus 7 to minus 8 degrees Celsius, that water freezes inside the berry while the sugars, acids and flavour compounds — which freeze at much lower temperatures — remain liquid. Pressing the frozen grapes leaves the ice crystals in the press and yields only a few drops of this concentrated nectar. A vine that might make a bottle of dry wine yields only a fraction of that in ice wine, which is why it is so rare and costly.
German origins: Eiswein
Eiswein was born in Germany, with the first documented production generally placed in Franconia in 1794, though the style only became established in the 19th and 20th centuries. Made chiefly from Riesling, German Eiswein is prized for its electric acidity, which balances the intense sweetness and keeps the wine vibrant rather than cloying. It sits at the top of the German ripeness scale, above even Beerenauslese. Picking depends entirely on a hard natural frost, and in warm winters no Eiswein is made at all.
Canada: the new world capital
Canada has become the world's largest producer of ice wine, thanks to its reliably brutal winters. The Niagara Peninsula in Ontario and the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia produce vast quantities — far more reliably than Germany, because the deep freeze comes every year. The signature grape is Vidal, a hardy hybrid whose thick skins withstand hanging into January, alongside Riesling and Cabernet Franc. Canadian VQA rules strictly govern the picking temperature and forbid artificial freezing.
Austria and beyond
Austria makes excellent Eiswein, particularly in Burgenland around Lake Neusiedl, where humidity and cold combine. Smaller quantities come from elsewhere — the United States, China's cold north, and a handful of other cool regions. The defining requirement everywhere is a genuine, hard, natural frost; wines made from artificially frozen grapes cannot legally be called ice wine in the classic producing countries.
The grower's gamble
Making ice wine is a nerve-wracking wait. The grapes must hang through autumn and into deep winter, vulnerable to rot, hail, wind and hungry birds, until a sufficiently hard frost arrives — sometimes not until December or January. The pickers go out before dawn, in brutal cold, to harvest the frozen bunches by hand, and pressing must happen immediately while the grapes are still frozen. A single warm spell can ruin the entire crop, which is why ice wine commands such high prices.
Tasting ice wine
Ice wine is intensely sweet but should never be heavy. Look for flavours of apricot, peach, honey, tropical fruit and candied citrus, all lifted by a streak of bracing acidity. German and Austrian Rieslings are the most delicate and racy; Vidal ice wines are richer and more tropical. Serve it well chilled in small glasses — a little goes a long way — as a wine to sip on its own or with fruit tarts, blue cheese and foie gras rather than rich chocolate desserts.
Explore on the map
The great ice wine regions are plotted on the interactive map. Filter by country and zoom to Germany's river valleys, Austria's Lake Neusiedl, or Canada's Niagara Peninsula to find the cold-climate estates where winter frost is turned into liquid gold.