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...