Beat the Heat with Ice Wine

Filed in archive Canadian Wines on August 12, 2006

I'm always blabbing about how hot it is down South, but no one can deny that right now, it's hot in many other parts of the U.S. and the world for that matter. Ah, to be a polar bear about now.

One way to beat the heat according to CentreDaily.com is enjoy some ice wine aka icewine:

We decided that the best way to beat the summer heat is to sit on the back porch, sip iced tea, and instead of putting sugar in the tea, moderate the tannic taste with some very cold candy. We are fond of sipping refrigerator-temperature liquid candy -- ice wine -- with our iced tea. And we are not the only ones who love ice wine; it is one of the most sought after wines in the world.

The juice of ripe grapes contains about 22 percent sugar. If you make wine from the juice and all the sugar is used up, you will have wine with about 11 percent alcohol. If there is enough sugar, yeast will continue its work until there is about 15 percent alcohol in the wine. If you just ferment ordinary grape juice until it stops, you have dry (no sugar taste) wine.

Now that's thinking! An excellent way to cool off and enjoy one of my all time favorite vintages. You can read more about ice wines on the Wines of Canada web site. It includes a lot of detailed information about how the wine is made, why it's so darn pricey, and how best to serve it.