We are Passionate about Great Wine!
Dancing Dragonfly Winery
  • Home
    • Drive-Up
    • About Our Winery >
      • DDW Drone Video
      • Our Name
      • Our Owners
      • Our Charities
    • Visiting the Winery
    • Find or Contact Us
    • DDW Blog
    • Gallery >
      • Winery
      • Private Events
      • DDW Drone Video
    • Visiting the Area
    • Now Hiring!
  • Wines
    • Wine Descriptions
    • Shipping Wine
    • Private Blend Experience
    • Wine Accolades
    • What is Marquessa?
  • Food
  • Experiences
    • At the Winery
    • At Your Home
  • Clubs
    • Inner Circle Wine Club >
      • Gift Memberships
    • Pre-Order Club
  • Events
    • Our Events >
      • Complete Event Calendar
      • Art at the Winery Series
      • Festivals & Weekends
      • Holiday Boutiques
    • Your Events >
      • Weddings
      • Corporate & Private Events
  • Buy Wine
    • Buy Directly From Us
    • Buy at Retail Locations

What is a true ice wine?

​"Ice wine (or icewine; German: Eiswein) is a type of dessert wine produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. The sugars and other dissolved solids do not freeze, but the water does, allowing for a more concentrated grape juice to develop. The grapes' must is pressed from the frozen grapes, resulting in a smaller amount of more concentrated, very sweet wine. With ice wines, the freezing happens before the fermentation, not afterwards. Unlike the 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 any great degree. Only healthy grapes keep in good shape until the opportunity arises for an ice wine harvest, which in extreme cases can occur after the New Year, on a northern hemisphere calendar. This gives ice wine its characteristic refreshing sweetness balanced by high acidity. When the grapes are free of Botrytis, they are said to come in 'clean'.

Ice wine production is risky (the frost may not come at all before the grapes rot or are otherwise lost) and requires the availability of a large enough labour force to pick the whole crop within a few hours, at a moment's notice, on the first morning that is cold enough. This results in relatively small amounts of ice wine being made worldwide, making ice wines generally quite expensive."

​Source: Wikipedia
Picture

DANCING DRAGONFLY WINERY  |  2013 120th Avenue  | St. Croix Falls, WI 54024  |  info@dancingdragonflywinery.com​  |  715-483-WINE
Picture