Eiswein

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Adam Quinan
SeaMark Smith - December 19, 2006 - Eiswein and Others
Adam Quinan - Ice Wines of Ontario
Marian Van Til - Jackson-Triggs Winery in Ontario

Adam Quinan
Crush your frozen grapes and extract the sugar rich juice, filtering out the ice crystals, and ferment, adding no water. You will have made ice wine, Canada's gift to the world wines. The Germans may have invented eiswein but its production has been improved and made consistent in the Niagara area. It is a very sweet wine lots of fruit flavours and expensive as it takes many more grapes to make a bottle as the juice is so concentrated.

SeaMark Smith - December 19, 2006 - Eiswein and Others
A couple of weeks ago I had a unique opportunity to serve as a "consumer" judge in the Platinum wine tasting sponsored each year by Wine Press Northwest Magazine. Each year they taste all the Pacific Northwest wines that have won gold medals or higher at wine tastings all over the world. This year we tasted 256 wines in two days, along side a professional panel from Atlanta, San Francisco, Dallas and from here. Wines are ranked double platinum (every judge judging the wine platinum; platinum, double gold or gold. Again this year ice wines and desert wines from British Columbia won a number of platinum awards. They are not readily available in the US, but may (certainly should) be in Canada. Here are the major winners from BC. . . (All prices are Canadian)

Double Platinum:
Jackson-Triggs 2005 Grand Reserve Riesling Ice Wine - Okanagan Valley - $60

Platinum:
Jackson-Triggs 2005 Grand Reserve Sparkling Riesling Ice Wine - Okanagan Valley - $60
Pentage Wines 2003 Gamay Noir - Okanagan Valley - $19
BEST BUY! Gehringer Brothers Estate Winery 2005 Schonburger-Gewurztraminier - Okanagan Valley - $13
Gehringer Brothers Estate Winery 2005 Classic Auxerrois - Okanagan Valley - $14
Jackson-Triggs 2004 SunRock Vineyard Meritage - Okanagan Valley - $34
Jackson-Triggs 2005 Proprietors Reserve Dry Riesling - Okanagan Valley - $13
Gehringer Brothers Estate Winery 2004 Signature Cabernet Franc Ice Wine Okanagan Valley - $47 (My personal favorite and a wonder wine for Christmas)
Wild Goose Vineyards 2005 Riesling - Okanagan Valley - $15
Jackson-Triggs 2005 Proprietors Reserve Riesling Ice Wine - Okanagan Valley - $63
Sandhill Wines 2003 Small Lots Barbera - Okanagan Valley - $27
Jackson-Triggs 2005 Proprietors Reserve Cabernet Franc Rose - Okanagan Valley - $14
Wild Goose Vineyards 2005 Autumn Gold - Okanagan Valley - $16

So, of the 32 wines from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia judged Platinum, 13 were from British Columbia. Not bad!!!

Adam Quinan - Ice Wines of Ontario
Ontario (specifically the Niagara peninsula) has become the world's most consistent source of ice wine as our winters are more reliable than the Germans' (not this year!). The grapes have to be frozen to below -10C, I think, to allow the ice to be filtered off the crushed grapes without it melting, concentrating the juice. They are picked at night usually in early January after staying on the vine netted against birds.
The reason its expensive is that it takes a lot more grapes and overtime to make a bottle and it is so tasteful that it is usually sold in half bottles.

Marian Van Til - Jackson-Triggs Winery in Ontario
Jackson-Triggs also has a winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, and it also makes ice wine. Good (expensive) stuff it is if you like sweet dessert wines.
Quite the place, this winery. Rustic and ultra-modern simultaneously. (The symphony chorus of which I'm a member held its annual fundraising auction there last year.)
A large handful of the three or four dozen wineries in the Niagara Peninsula (Canadian side) have restaurants attached to them; and every one is well worth a visit, each serving its own wines, many specializing in locally grown foods and meats, and each having some unique thing about its building (decor, ambience, view) and its food that distinguishes it from the others. Talk about gastronomic delight. But they don't come cheap. I suppose really good food rarely does. But it seems as if now that Torontonians have discovered them, the prices have shot up astronomically. But it still offends my frugal Dutch tendencies to have to use astronomic[ally] and gastronomic in the same sentence.