Winebuzz

Elegant Dining: Pair Dessert with Ice Wine

Introducing the nectar of the gods for dessert.

Ice wine isn’t your typical dessert wine. This high-end vintage is made from grapes which became frozen on the vine, creating a more concentrated and much sweeter-tasting wine. It’s believed the tradition of creating wine from frozen grapes dates back to Roman times, a culture which certainly knew something about decadent dining.

Canada and Germany are perhaps the best-known producers of high-end ice wines, with Canada – and in particular Ontario – being the largest ice wine manufacturers internationally. The fruitier, refreshing nature of ice wine makes it a perfect complement for sweet dishes, especially great for pairing with dessert.

Ice wine vintages are usually produced by Riesling grapes in Germany and Vidal and Cabernet Franc grapes in Canada. Many ice wines are pale yellow to amber in color, though some red varieties are produced. The high acidity and slightly lower alcohol content of ice wine keeps the sweet taste from becoming overpowering.

Some of the most delicious ice wines are well balanced in terms of sweetness, and have an intense beautiful aroma that is clean and complex.  If you are looking to try ice wine, we recommend Inniskillin Icewines as they are known to produce excellent quality ice wines and have one of the biggest distributions in the world, making them easy to find even in Hong Kong.

The Inniskillin Gold Oak-Aged Vidal ice wine is a deliciously rich sweet wine with an aromatic bouquet of apple blossom, apricot, fig and honey.  For something fresh and distinctively different, try the Inniskillin Sparkling Vidal ice wine. With a nice golden color and bouquet notes of nectarines, pear and apricot, on the palate it has a delicate and lively effervescence, with a clean and well balanced sweetness. It received a 91 points rating from Wine Spectator in 2008 and has won numerous awards each year.

How much?

• Gold Oak-Aged Vidal Icewine, 2006 – HK$600
• Vidal Sparkling Icewine, 2006 – HK$600
• Jackson-Triggs Reserve Vidal Icewine, 2006 – HK$486

Where to buy?

ASC Fine Wines, call James at 3923 6790