Extreme Vino - Canadian ice wine requires complex production, but yields sweet returns
The Daily - Arts & Life - Saturday, January 21, 2012
There we were, freezing our keisters off in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. The mercury had dropped well below zero, and the wind flung the snow so far sideways, it occasionally blew up at our faces from below the vines. We were a tiny group of harvesters, there to pick grapes in the name of Canada’s best gift to the winemaking world: ice wine.
We filled a few dozen bins with the brown frozen clusters of grapes, dumped them in the wine press and hit the switch. We peered in, waiting for the juice to appear between the wood slats and flow into the inch of snow that had accumulated at the bottom of the press. Nothing happened. It was a small amount of grapes, so we reconfigured the press and squeezed again. Still, not a drop.
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