I noticed the other day that I have Eiswein made from three different varietals in my cellar. One is a LaCrosse from Nebraska, one is a Chenin Blanc from California, and one is a Riesling from Germany. I can get a Vidal from Canada easily enough. What other varietal Eisweins are there?

From Washington State, at least Cab Franc, Chenin Blanc, Gewurztrauminer, Muscat, Riesling, and Semillon.

I've had Viognier dessert wine from Washington, so Ice wine is not out of the question.

My favorite varietal for Eiswein is Scheurebe. It has the considerable acidity necessary to balance the intense sweetness.

There is also a clone used called Seyval Blanc. Ice wine is made from this in New York State and Canada. More typically I see this one from either Finger Lakes or Erie regions.

I've had it made from Zinfandel too. Ravenwood or Renwood I believe it was but it said it the grapes were frozen artificially so maybe that isn't technically icewine.

In the US, winemakers are allowed to cheat a little by doing just that. From my tasting experience, I have found the ice wines to still taste good though. Maybe with more ice wine flight tastings I might start to notice though but not sure.

I've never had it but Adelheim makes a Pinot Noir icewine the same way, cheating, if you will.

Phelps makes a truly great sweet wine called Eisrebe. They don't call it an ice wine because they freeze the grapes after picking, but I think it's a great improvement over true ice wines. With true ice wines, the ambient temperature dictates when the grapes are picked. With Eisrebe, the Scheurebe grapes are picked at optimal ripeness and then frozen. For that reason, it's a consistently excellent wine. If you've never tried one, I highly recommend it. It's about $40 for a .375.

I bet it will be good coming from Phelps. $40 is not bad or ice wine. The Canadian ones are a good $50-60 per half bottle. They even make 1/4 bottles tall enough that you think they are half bottles. Those in New York, go to Vintage NY wine shop as he carried only NYS wines. They have good dessert ones. Saint Maria (something like that from Finger Lakes) makes good dessert wine that taste like ice wine. Maybe they call it late harvest.

Thank you for the replies.

This thread has raised some questions for me. The books I have read so far say the grapes are frozen and the wine is then made, and they give little if any additional information. So here goes:

In a normal Eiswein, after the grapes have frozen on the vine, are they thawed on the vine, or are they harvested frozen?

If harvested frozen, are the grapes pressed while frozen?

If ice wines can be made by “cheating” and freezing the grapes after harvesting them, it is difficult (for me anyway) to understand what contribution the freezing adds to the wine, considering the sugar quantities of the grapes have to be at a certain level before the wine is technically an ice wine, as opposed to a late harvest wine.

BTW, Tobin James has a late harvest Zinfandel. Has anybody tried it?

quote:

Originally posted by shane:
Thank you for the replies.

This thread has raised some questions for me. The books I have read so far say the grapes are frozen and the wine is then made, and they give little if any additional information. So here goes:

In a normal Eiswein, after the grapes have frozen on the vine, are they thawed on the vine, or are they harvested frozen?

harvested frozen- it's the definition of ice wine (Eiswein)

If harvested frozen, are the grapes pressed while frozen?

yes

If ice wines can be made by “cheating” and freezing the grapes after harvesting them, it is difficult (for me anyway) to understand what contribution the freezing adds to the wine, considering the sugar quantities of the grapes have to be at a certain level before the wine is technically an ice wine, as opposed to a late harvest wine.

The sugar levels do not have to be at any certain level for a wine to be called an ice wine (Eiswein). Freezing leaves ice behind when the grapes are pressed so that the juice is much more concentrated.

BTW, Tobin James has a late harvest Zinfandel. Has anybody tried it?

I've had a couple of Zin ice wines, but not Tobin James. Best I had was Sweet Sydney by Sineann.

I'll offer a big second for Phelps version. I also remember buying a case of the 1996 at $14 a bottle

Renwood makes the Zinfandel version, which is actually pretty gross. Tastes like pancake syrup.

A long lost board member made an authentic Zinfandel Ice Wine from Lodi one year, as far as I know, it was only given away to club members. It was supposed to be very good.

quote:

Originally posted by Stefania Wine:
A long lost board member made an authentic Zinfandel Ice Wine from Lodi one year, as far as I know, it was only given away to club members. It was supposed to be very good.

From Vitis? I didn't like it too much but don't remember why. It had a different label on it and came with a shipment. I wasn't even sure it was his.

quote:

Originally posted by Stefania Wine:Renwood makes the Zinfandel version, which is actually pretty gross. Tastes like pancake syrup.

Yeah, I brought that. It tasted like strawberry syrup. Very simple and sweet. Thought it might be good over ice cream.

I think the lesson is if you start with simple grapes, you'll get a simple icewine. If there's any off notes, concentrating will only make them stand out.

Bonny Doon experimented with some different varieties, way back when. A couple years ago we tried both a Semillon and a Muscat Canelli from the '88 vintage. Both were excellent, but completely different.

It was Vitis, and yhn, I don't think I had it when you brought it, I'd already tried it a couple years before and passed on it

quote:

If ice wines can be made by “cheating” and freezing the grapes after harvesting them, it is difficult (for me anyway) to understand what contribution the freezing adds to the wine, considering the sugar quantities of the grapes have to be at a certain level before the wine is technically an ice wine, as opposed to a late harvest wine.

The sugar levels do not have to be at any certain level for a wine to be called an ice wine (Eiswein). Freezing leaves ice behind when the grapes are pressed so that the juice is much more concentrated.

If you ever get a chance to tour the wineries up in the Niagara area they tell you by law the grapes have to naturally freeze or it can't be labeled icewine. They also all say when pressed frozen you only get one drop of juice per grape, thus the concentration and syrupy consistancy.

My favorite domestic icewine is the Covey Run Semillon. The stuff is delicious and only $20 a half bottle, I get a case (6) whenever I find it.

quote:

In a normal Eiswein, after the grapes have frozen on the vine, are they thawed on the vine, or are they harvested frozen?

If harvested frozen, are the grapes pressed while frozen?

Shane - to add to the info above:

In many places, the grapes don't go through only one freezing. They may actually freeze and thaw several times.

To the sugar - first of all, since they're still on the vines in the winter, they're most likely going to have higher sugar levels anyway - super ripe and maybe "late harvest". More importantly as noted above, when they are pressed, they're pressed cold and much of the water remains as ice, so the juice that comes out is very concentrated.

You can do a little experiment yourself. Go to your local store where they have the cheap crappy popsicles and buy one. Let it thaw for a couple of minutes and pull off the wrapper. It's going to be sticky. Or just dissolve some sugar in hot water or coffee, cool it and freeze it in an ice cube tray. Check it in a few days. There will be a sticky syrup when you take the cubes out. That's because as the water molecules start feezing, they start squeezing out the sugar, so it reaches much higher concentrations in the remaining, unfrozen water. That syrup is what you make your wine from. You discard the ice.

Freezing water out of the grapes make sense. My train of thought was apparently derailed. I was trying to think in biological or even chemical processes, not physical. (As an analogy, but maybe not a very good one, I know in a tobacco plant, the end product, a cigar, can be changed by overexposing the plant to the sun. The plant will produce different amounts of chemicals, sugar being one of them, to help prevent damage from the sun.) Sometimes it’s hard to get my mind to shift gears. Thanks for the information.

Just to add to the varietals, I've had both Merlot and Gamay icewines. I believe both were from the same winery out of the Okanogan in Canada.

I had the Adelsheim Pinot Noir Deglase on Thanksgiving. It was pretty good, mostly tasted of strawberry and maybe some cherry in there but lacked the acidity I like in my icewines. I think I'll stick to my usual riesling, vidal, and semillon sweeties.

i had this rulander eiswein, recently

1988 dorst wörrstadter rheingrafenberg

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/4227/eiswein1988lp2.jpg

quote:

The sugar levels do not have to be at any certain level for a wine to be called an ice wine (Eiswein). Freezing leaves ice behind when the grapes are pressed so that the juice is much more concentrated

I am under the impression that to qualify for Icewine, grapes must be naturally harvested at
-8 degrees C. yielding minimum Brix levels of 36% . I am lead to believe that VQAOntario has trademarked the term Icewine, and allows any winery that produces Icewine under the strict standards to use the term. The Icewine industry is highly regulated. Potential harvests must be registered, harvest and production monitored, offered to the VQA tasting panel for approval and prior to release, lab anaylasis and certificates of origin issued.

Trademarking Ice wine? Isn't that like trademarking Red Wine? The VQA is very strict with their rules for icewine but I have never heard of them trademarking it like Champagne has tried to do although they did apparently come up with the ingenius form of the words where there is no space in between them. Damn those Canadians are clever.

try one made from pinot gris...