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Ice Wine – Fact or fiction?
Absolute fact! But there is a bit of history here. Ice wine was not invented, it was in fact an accident. This came about when a region was hit by an unusually early frost with plenty of grapes still on the vine. A few days later, the growers found tons of shrivelled grapes on their vines. What to do?
They picked them up and fermented them. There were two factors that changed the wine dramatically as a result of using these shrivelled grapes. Firstly, the grapes had lost some of their water content, so the juice had a much higher sugar to water ratio. Secondly, the yeast can only ferment up to 17-18%. Since there was a much higher concentration of sugar, and the yeast has a maximum alcohol tolerence (and therefore maximum reachable % ABV), the wine ended up with high alcohol and high sugar. The result of course was a very sweet wine.
Commercially, it is simple to reproduce this effect. Simply by increasing the sugar content of the juice you will reach this state where there is just too much sugar to ferment out before the yeast dies, and the result is a high sugar high alcohol wine – your ‘Ice wine’.
Odd wine names!!
Just take a peak around your favourite wine store and you’ll see some of these strange names.
Things like :
-Hat Trick Canadian Red
-Crazy girl
-Stamp Red
-Bend River White
Most of the time, they do not identify a country of origin (or call it a "blend of international grapes", same thing) or even the type of grapes used. Is it "plonk" or is it legit? Its really hard to have any idea of what to expect when the wine doesn’t even tell you what’s in it!
Of course,there are a few of our kits use funky names like "Trilogy" – but at least they tell you what that means. Trilogy is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. If you don’t see a country of origin, it almost always means California.
Whatever varietal you prefer, we have a complete selection with transparent names so you know what to expect from the wine. With our 190+ wine kits, we’re certain to have exactly what you’ve been looking for. Come on in and have a look!