why is ice wine so expensive?

why is ice wine so expensive

I did a quick google search to find out what ice wine was and google answered your question. They are from grapes picked while frozen on the vine. Apparently it takes a TON of grapes to make it

Also, traditionally, the grapes are only picked on Christmas eve and because of their frozen state, they must be picked by hand.

Limited grapes = limited production

You go out in the vineyard in sub-freezing temps to pick grapes. You'll want a bigger paycheck than the dude who get to do it in the warm sunshine.

Pretty much the same reasons Trockenbeerenauslesen are expensive. Labor-intensive, lower yield per acre, and higher risk because it requires more specific cooperation from the climate than a normal wine.

and they have to be pressed frozen to

My wife is from Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, where some of the best icewine in the world is made. Ten times the grapes are needed for a bottle of icewine, and yes, they have to be picked by hand, at night, in winter.

Batinse said:

My wife is from Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, where some of the best icewine in the world is made. Ten times the grapes are needed for a bottle of icewine, and yes, they have to be picked by hand, at night, in winter.

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If it takes 10 times the grapes, then at $25/bottle it's actually cheap!

Kinda. Sorta.

DoctorCAD said:

Also, traditionally, the grapes are only picked on Christmas eve by tiny little elves wearing birthday suits and tossle caps.

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Salute!

When I get the pictures together of our trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake I'll post a description of our trip and all the ice wines we sampled... it was a phenomenal vacation!

I've had some absolutely etheral ice wines from the Finger Lakes. Didn't see a lot when we were out last summer (saw a lot of "late harvest" wines instead); pretty sure they can't even make them every year, if conditions aren't right.

But yeah, labor intensive + limited supply + use of a metric ****ton of grapes + market forces (guys like me will pay up for a great example) make them spendy.

$25/bottle would be very much on the cheap end. Heron Hill had a phenomenal Reisling-based icewine we sampled, $7 for a tiny tasting just of that and $100 for a bottle. Most of the good ones we've tried are at least $30 - $40, for a half-bottle.

The absolute cheapest ice wine at the Duty Free in Niagara Falls was $25/200 ml bottle. It was far more typical to see $30-$40 for 375 ml... and we bought a $65/375 ml for our one year anniversary.

And that was in the Duty Free!

Batinse said:

My wife is from Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, where some of the best icewine in the world is made. Ten times the grapes are needed for a bottle of icewine, and yes, they have to be picked by hand, at night, in winter.

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SWMBO and I were up there a couple of years ago. Terrific wine tour! They are certainly doing something right there. It knocked the socks of the stuff in Ohio.

Ever hear of "the noble rot?" It's a fungus that can occassionally infect grape vines.... and is VERY highly prized. Basically, it just sucks all the moisture out of the grapes, working essentially the same as when the grapes freeze and the water gets removed that way.

Had a lot of really nice "late harvest" wines this summer, too, again very sweet dessert wines. Lots of great ones from this area, love ones that have huge amounts of fruit flavor and acidic tartness to offset the cloying sweetness.

the_bird said:

love ones that have huge amounts of fruit flavor and acidic tartness to offset the cloying sweetness.

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That's what the ice vintners all said was so special about ice wine... it's not just the sugar, but the sugar-acid balance that matters so much.

We had someone's "ice wine" (maybe Fox Run? Stever Hill, maybe? Don't have my notes with me) where it tasted like they they backsweetened with a ton of sugar and added some acid directly. Tasted cloying and one-dimensional, kind of metallic IIRC. This example was also on the cheap side, maybe $20 for a bottle, so it was pretty clear that it wasn't a true example of the style.

Lamereaux Landing had one of the best dessert wines we've tried; can't recall if it was an icewine or a late harvest, though.

If it is from Canada and bears the VQA mark, ice wine has very strict limitations on how it can be made.

Some people have tried cryoconcentration in the past to attempt to make ice wine without the risk of loss and weather restrictions of true ice wine, but efforts so far have not been effective/desirable/widely sucessful.

I'm also looking into this, seeing if I can get close to ice wine without the stiff price of true ice wine. Of course I'm going to order an ice wine brew kit, but I think it's worth it to pursue other measures as well.

These ones were NY wines, I'll have to grab my notes and see which ones we didn't like. Not sure if they WERE backsweetened, that's just how they tasted - sweet but hollow, without that gignormous fruitiness.

It's not just the freezing that makes an icewine, though, which I suspect is what makes the process to duplicate. The grapes have become overripe, sitting on the vines that long. Concentrating a grape that's at "normal" ripeness isn't going to be the same as making an icewine, basically concentrating the juice from a grape that's already overripe.