Icewine: the complete story

In the last decade, icewine has become a phenomenon among wine lovers. Like many good things, it had accidental beginnings -- an early frost caught grapes still on the vine. The desperate wine maker pressed the grapes anyway and voila -- a rich, sweet dessert wine was discovered. For a long time, icewine, or Eiswein, was only made in Germany and Austria on those rare occasions -- maybe once in a decade -- when climate conditions permitted. With the growth of the wine industry in North America in the 1970s and 80s, icewine became a natural for the vineyards of the northern U.S. and Canada, where it can be produced every year. Today, with high quality standards and strong marketing campaigns, icewine has become a prized addition to the gourmet dinner table Icewine now rivals the great dessert wines of Sauternes, and it is starting to be produced in unexpected regions such as California and New Zealand, using freezers rather than winter. With all these new producers and growing interest in it, the market is ripe for an informative book about icewine. With his extensive knowledge of the current wine scene, John Schreiner is in an ideal position to write this, the first authoritative guide to icewine. Schreiner writes on wine for several publications and is the author of The World of Canadian Wine.