Icewine Industry

Comprehensive Study on Icewine Industry

Icewine (or Icewine; German: Eiswein) is a type of dessert wine made from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. Sugars and other dissolved solids don't freeze, but water does, allowing more concentrated grape juice to develop. The grape must is then pressed from the frozen grapes, resulting in a smaller amount of more concentrated and very sweet wine. With ice wines, freezing takes place before fermentation, not after. Unlike grapes from which other dessert wines are made, such as Sauternes, Tokaji or Trockenbeerenauslese, ice wine grapes should not be affected by Botrytis cinerea or noble rot, at least not to a high degree. Only healthy grapes remain in good condition until the opportunity presents itself for an ice wine harvest, which in extreme cases can occur after New Years, on a Northern Hemisphere calendar. This gives the ice wine its characteristic refreshing sweetness balanced by high acidity. When the grapes are free from Botrytis, they are said to be "clean".

Get Sample PDF

Leading players of Icewine Industry:

Pillitteri Estates, Pelee Island, Peller Estates, Kittling Ridge, Reif Estate Winery, Jackson-Triggs, Riverview Cellars Estate, Chateau Ste. Michelle, Joseph’s Estate Wines, Konzelmann Estate Winery

The production of icewine is risky (frost may not come at all before the grapes rot or are otherwise wasted) and requires the availability of a large enough workforce to pluck the entire crop in a matter of hours, anytime, from the first morning which is quite cold. As a result, relatively small amounts of icewine are produced around the world, making icewine generally expensive.

Icewine production is limited to that minority of the wine-growing regions of the world where the necessary cold temperatures can be expected to be reached with some regularity. Canada is the world's largest producer of ice wine, producing a larger volume of ice wine than all other countries combined, followed by Germany.