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Revealing Canada’s
WINE SECRETS The phenomenon of ice wine in the Canadian winters O Canada, the land of poutine, polar bears, northern lights and of course, wine. Wait, did we say wine? We meant delicious wine. It might come as a surprise to many, but under that thick blanket of snow and heavy foliage of maple leaves, Canada has been hiding some of the most delightful wines and wineries. The wine that is most commonly associated with Canada is, unsurprisingly, icewine. Legend has it icewine originated in Germany
in the 18th century when a winemaker’s vineyard froze before it could be harvested for winter, and he decided to make wine anyway. Today, Canada is the largest producer of the variety in the world. To make icewine, grapes are allowed to freeze on the vines at temperatures under -8°C, and then the frozen grapes, hard as marbles, are put through a crusher to squeeze tiny amounts of sweet wine out of the grapes. And we mean seriously sweet wine.
When grapes freeze on vines, only the water content in the grapes freezes while the sugars stay intact. This means, a good squeeze releases nothing but the most concentrated, naturally sugary, wonderfully flavoured wine. Fermentation takes several months and sometimes years due to the high sugar content, but the result is precious (quite literally) dessert wine that is bursting with flavours of tropical fruits, citrus,
