About 95% of the wines I own and drink are reds. I started on whites and once I made the leap to reds, for the most part I haven't looked back. I've tried a few of the "better" SB's from New Zealand and was unimpressed to say the least. I still do like the occasional Chard, but more often than not I find them unpleasing too. My wife was talking with one of her co-workers(not a wine drinking/geek one)who a week or so ago had a bottle of Ice-wine on a trip to Niagara falls. She isn't sure what the wine was, but insists that it was GREAT!

That leads me to my topic. I have never had an Ice-wine or dessert wine. I have had port and do have a few in my cellar, however I am looking for some specific recommendations to some dessert wines and/or ice wines that are reasonably priced that would be ready to drink now.

I have heard that dessert wines i.e. Sauternes sp? can be laid down for a long time. Are some of the younger ones ready to go now, or like a Bordeaux do they need a good 5-10 years on em? Secondly, I would like reasonably priced recommendations. I have seen some "Gold Cap" Ice wines reviewd in WS and some of the prices are out of this world, for a 375 none the less. I understand they may be great, but I am just looking for a little introduction to these wines, and I imagine several other people could benefit from this post as well.

So- what are the suggestions? Sould I run and buy some sauternes futures? What year. What can I try now? Thanks ahead for any input!

Kevin

Kevin,

I don't know that there is such a thing as reasonably priced Icewines from Canada. I've tasted quite a few over the last year and all of my notes are in one thread which can be linked here.

VM

Kevin,

I forgot to give you Sauternes information.

If you are looking at Sauternes, the 2001 vintage is a good place to start. All of the information you will probably need is in this thread. Surprisingly you can find many reasonably priced.

VM

Dirty. I certainly wouldn't consider myself an expert on ice/desert wines but that's never stopped me from giving someone my opinions before. For Icewine, look north. OK, so maybe a little biased but there are some really good ones and they are cheaper than many of the German ones. Inniskillin is probably the best known and most widely distributed one. Konzelmann is another of my favourites. They run for about CDN$60 (375 ml) up here. When I have seen them in the US, they sell for more than that though.

I also had a really good Austrian eiswein a few months ago. 1998 Graf Hardegg. I profited from a price tag mistake and had a couple of bottles for CDN$30 each.

Sauternes. I think you could find a few posts here that discuss 2001 as the vintage to buy futures. I certainly did. If you're not too late.

My wife and I are in a simular line in that we drink about 95% red and the occasional white. We have been exploring more and more white as we go on and have also ventured into ports and other specialty wines.

We fell in love with an Ice Wine from Pellar Estates, on the Niagara Penninsula. This wine is unique in that it is a Cabernet Franc ice wine! That's right, a red ice wine. So wonderful in that it has the fruit and cab franc structure within the thick, sweet (but not overly so) icewine body. This stuff is not cheap, but is worth it. From other posts here, I suspect Vineland Estates, just a few miles from Pellar, also makes outstanding ice wines, including a cab franc.

I have tried the more common vidal icewines, but did not care as much for the structures. The rieslings are pretty good, and also quite common.

I don't know about your area, but down here in SC, the only icewines I have found are Inniskillan riesling ice wine and a few from Washington State. The Inniskilan is way over priced when you compare it to what you can buy it for in Canada, although the exchange rates are not as good as they were a few years ago. My advice: Buy Canadian icewines whenever you visit Canada. While in the States, try either Washinton State or some German selections.

I have wowed my friends with the cab franc icewine - pair it with a chocolate based dessert and it is a showstopper!

Other dessert wines that we have had include Black Muscat (Ferrari-Carano El Dorado Noir), A nice inexpensive Muscato made by EOS (Tears of Dew?), and several late harvest Viogners. On the port front, the best I have had include Shafer Cabernet Port (Sold only at the winery, 100 cases per year made from the Hillside Select Cab!) and Lake Sonoma Zinfandel Port (wonderful stuff, but again only sold at the winery). Locally, I enjoyed a Four Vines Zinfaldel Port (good QPR, around $24) and have seen a Rancho Zabacco Cabernet port, but have not tried it. Benson's Old Tawny Port from Austrailia is also a good one and reasonably priced. (I believe it's made by Rosemount)

I am afraid I have very little experiance with French wines, other than some Bordeaux I have resting.

Well, I hope you can extract some useful information from my ramblings. Good luck and enjoy!

quote:

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Good wine, Good food, Good friends - what else do you need?

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VM-

I would imagine that I am too late on the 01 Sauternes. Have you seen any of them that are still worth a look? I think that 01 thread you started was from about a year ago or so.

Kevin

What about the drinking windows in general?

young or old

Also, from one of the VM threads, I gather that you probably want to drink these a colder than normal. I thought I read something about a tasting at Sam's being served to warm?

Thanks for the suggestions and please keep any coming. Any specific producers I should keep my eyes out for? I am going to buy a few later this week and would prefer to get a few good examples instead of picking a few at random.

Kevin

There are numerous threads here on Canadian icewines and dessert wines in general. to find the former I suggest a search on the word Niagara, for the latter, hmmm, I don't know.... Vinocellar has a forum devoted to dessert wines that has notes and comments on many of the wines mentioned here, but would be easier to find.

snow sucks, cold is worse.......

If you are talking about a white icewine, you would probably approach them the same way as a white riesling or chardonnay. You can drink them young or cellar for a couple of years. I've done both with Niagara icewines and German eiswein. I have some '99 Chateau des Charmes riesling icewines and a Strewn '99 riesling (both Niagara wins) that I served recently and which went over extremely well with my guests. I also have saveral bottles of a 2000 Jost icewine from Nova Scotia which continue to impress. I wouldn't cellar an icewine for more than 7-8 years. A couple of years ago I came across a couple of 1989 icewines which had escaped my notice in the cellar and they had started to go bad, turning brown and tasting not unlike sweet prune nectar.

With icewine, I go by a combination of the year, the grape and the vinyard. Cave Spring makes a nice reserve riesling and a nice riesling icewine. I wasn't that enamored by the 2001, but the 2002 harvest across Niagara was exceptional. For red icewines, I'd look to Peller Estates, Pilliteri Estate and Vineland Estate.

For a less pricey but quite nice desert wine, look at the Niagara late harvest wines, which are about the third of the price of a good icewine. Konzelmann and Cave Spring make a nice late harvest icewine, among others. I have a couple of Konzelmann 2000 late harvest wines; it's a fabulous desert wine now sold out I fear, but it was priced about C$18 which is, what, about $13.50 at currency exchange rates. I tried the 2001 but found it slightly too acidic for my liking, but still a nice wine.

The problem with Canadian wines is that you hardly find any in US wine stores, and they can't ship to the US by mail. I guess it's our little secret, and while we'd like to share it, it seems that because of small volumes (which can't compete with high volume pricing out of the southern hemisphere or southern Mediterranean)you pretty well have to visit Ontario to taste the wine. However, Niagara as a region to visit has a lot to recommend, wine, food, golf, The Falls, Toronto, etc.

aaahh.. my favorite topic... desert wines.

My cellar is probably 40% desert wines... so here are my opinions.

Canadian icewines are by far more readily available at stores and better QPR than the German eisweins. In my opinion, I like Peller Estate. They average about $25 for a half bottle, which I think is pretty reasonable. Inniskillin recently up there price this year and their quality have not improved. The 2002 vintage is what you should be looking for in terms of Canadian icewines.

I also suggest you try Austria desert wines such as Kracher. They can be purchased for about $35 ++. They generally have more acidic and more citrus taste to them in comparison to icewines.

Tawny ports are also great and cheap. Pair them with chocolate cake... it'll be divine. I suggest Dow Tawny Port or Fonseca. Again, they are about 17 - $25.

Good luck!

Here are some 2002 icewine ratings from the WineSavvy website, based on tastings at last month's Icewine Festival gala in Niagara. There are some descriptions of each on the website. Prices are Canadian dollars).

92 Niagara College Vidal Icewine 2002, Niagara ($34.95, ON)

91 Vineland Estates Vidal Icewine 2002, Niagara ( $42, ON)

90 Cave Springs Riesling Icewine 2002, Niagara ($59.95, ON)

90 Pillitteri Estate Riesling Icewine 2002, Niagara ( $25/200ml, ON)

88 Pillitteri Estate Gewürztraminer Icewine 2002, Niagara ( $30/200ml, ON)

90 Pillitteri Estate Cabernet Franc Icewine 2002, Niagara ( $35/ 200ml, ON)

88 Pillitteri Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Icewine 2002, Niagara ($35/200ml, ON)

Let me suggest a couple of specific ones here:

1) Bonny Doon muscat vin de glaciere. Nonvintage, about $15 per bottle (375mL)and always a pleaser, if maybe a little too sweet.

2) Joseph Phelps Eisrebe. Current vintage is 2002, about $22-28 per bottle (375mL). Quite sweet but fairly complex. The 2001 was a bit of a letdown compared to 1999, 2000, and 2002.

Sauternes are a delight, tend to be a little less sweet than the really sweet sweeties, and usually should be aged for a while. I would bet you'll see a bunch of quality 2001 Sauternes (and Barsacs) on the shelves, but they'll drink best only in a few years +. 99 was a pretty good year in Sauternes, and you may yet find them on the shelves. (BTW, Barsac is basically the same as Sauternes.)

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Yes, but I came here for an argument.

Oh! Oh! I'm sorry, this is abuse.

Buller Fine Muscat, an Australian sticky, is great, and under $20. If you have the money, a lot of people like the Calliope, but I have no first hand experience.

grossie,
check out the back of the boonie doon bottle,vintage in small print. took me two years to find it !!!!!!
i loae the stuff!
robert pecota sweet andrea 2002 muscat $25 only at winery but will ship.
luna late harvest pinot gris 2001 $32

DS,

Even though you can no longer buy 2001 Sauternes futures, that thread is still very useful. Most of the 2001 Sauternes will not hit the shelves until this Spring or Summer so you can still buy them. For a full list of WS barrel scores on 2001 Sauternes, go here.

VM

I find that most Canadian Icewines are overpriced. I understand the vinification process is near impossible and the yields are amazingly low, but still, $50-60 for a 375ml of Icewine is hard for me to swallow.

I think this is mainly to do with my own palate as I find great difficulty differentiating between a $60 Riesling Icewine and a $30 Vidal Icewine. Icewines seem quite close in quality in general and the extreme sweetness and thickness of them make it hard for me to really love one over another. Many people swear by Inniskillin, but I can't justify the $$$.

I generally buy Magnotta Icewines when I do buy them. The Vidal Icewine in a 375ml bottle is $26CDN or so and is also available in 200ml for around $14CDN. They are a great value, good quality and a good introduction to Canadian Icewines.

Here are a couple of excellent (and reasonably priced) dessert wines:

Rosenblum Black Muscat $15 (375ml)
Bonny Doone Viognier Deux $18 (750ml)
Columbia Crest Ice Wine $25 (375ml)
Tobin James Liquid Love (late harvest zin) $16 (375ml)
Castoro Cellars Late Harvest Zin $15 (375ml)

The Rosenblum is my favorite. It's made from some obscure grape called the "Black Hamburg." It is out of this world.

My favorite cheap dessert wine is M. Chiarlo Moscato di Asti, about $9/375. It's slightly effervescent and is a great Valentines Day wine.

Dessert wines from the Loire Valley, Fr. are probably the best QPR for the category, but finding them is the hard part.

Welcome, the devilhimself, with a moniker like that you will fit right in here!

I must say that I found the Rosenblum black muscat way too sweet for me, and I like a nice port on rare occasions....

snow sucks, cold is worse.......

grossie
did you see the post

Thanks bez. I'll look again very carefully next time.

********
Yes, but I came here for an argument.

Oh! Oh! I'm sorry, this is abuse.

I don't know how much of the stuff gets exported but there's a pretty large range of Australian dessert wines made, in addition to the fortified "stickies". Most of this is botrytis affected Semillon or Riesling, and these wines do have excellent medium term aging prospects.

The best is De Bortoli "Noble One".

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The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer

I've enjoyed Henry of Pelham's 2000 Reisling Icewine. It sells here for about C$55 for 375ml (US$40).

I'll second Grossie's recommendation on the Phelps Eisrebe. The 2002 is terrific.