Inniskillin Riesling Icewine (375ML half-bottle) 2018
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Winemaker Notes
An abundance of lively and fresh aromatics dominate this iconic Icewine including lemon, lime and white
peach. A bright and crisp acidity balances the full concentration of flavors which are mirrored from the nose.
Pairs beautifully with a variety of desserts including lemon tart, key lime pie, and cheesecake.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Riesling Ice Wine comes in with 268 grams or residual sugar, 9.98 of total acidity and 9.4% alcohol. (This seems identical to the 2017, but the information provided on that was apparently wrong—that had only 240 grams of sugar and 9.5 of total acidity). Scrumptious and a little syrupy, admittedly, this is not for the shy, but it's not intended to be. It's lip-smacking good with the flavors and aromatics of crushed peaches. Many will find it irresistible now. Personally, I prefer these with considerable age on them, when the gentle oxidation over time imparts complexity and nuance and the sugar impact moderates. It is, to be sure, a very different vision of the wine in 2035. Reasonable minds might differ. It should age well, perhaps notably more than indicated. The price applies to a half bottle.
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Wine Enthusiast
Sweet apples and peaches streaked with honey and caramel are the highlights here. Though it carries 230 g/L of residual sugar, it retains significant acidity, enough to put a lemony tang on the trailing finish.
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Wine & Spirits
This is classic Ontario icewine, rich, soft and bright in its sweet citrus flavors. It’s sweet enough to be dessert on its own, but would also complement a marzipan tart.
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What is Icewine?
VQA Icewine is a highly concentrated dessert wine made by harvesting grapes naturally frozen on the vine at -10 C in December-January. Inniskillin VQA Icewine is internationally awarded and recognized and is exported throughout the world.
Apart from the classics, we find many regional gems of different styles.
Late harvest wines are probably the easiest to understand. Grapes are picked so late that the sugars build up and residual sugar remains after the fermentation process. Ice wine, a style founded in Germany and there referred to as eiswein, is an extreme late harvest wine, produced from grapes frozen on the vine, and pressed while still frozen, resulting in a higher concentration of sugar. It is becoming a specialty of Canada as well, where it takes on the English name of ice wine.
Vin Santo, literally “holy wine,” is a Tuscan sweet wine made from drying the local white grapes Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia in the winery and not pressing until somewhere between November and March.
Rutherglen is an historic wine region in northeast Victoria, Australia, famous for its fortified Topaque and Muscat with complex tawny characteristics.
With a cool climate suitable for more than just icewine production, Canada is also home to excellent dry, still and sparkling Canadian wines. Most viticulture is based in Ontario on the east coast and British Columbia on the west coast. Because of the high risk of winter freeze and spring frost, plantings are typically centered on large bodies of water to take advantage of their temperature moderating effects.
In Ontario, particularly on the Niagara Peninsula, aromatic white varieties like Riesling and Gewürztraminer are most successful. Many Canadian wineries produce both dry and semi-dry versions. Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Gamay, and Cabernet Franc perform nicely here as well. For icewine, French-American hybrid variety, Vidal, is popular. In British Columbia, many of the same grapes are grown, but there is also a significant emphasis on Bordeaux varieties—especially Merlot.