A Cool Taste Heats Up

More Americans are warming up to ice wine. Meant to accompany pungent cheeses, foie gras and desserts, ice wine derives its name not from its serving temperature (chilled) but from the unusual way the grapes are harvested and processed. They are picked and pressed while frozen solid, in the dead of winter. The result is a wine with an intense flavor — sweet, like Sauternes, but tangy. "I love these wines," says Andrea Immer, author of Great Tastes Made Simple. "They're a spark plug for the mouth." Ice wines originated in the 1790s when workers in the Franconian region of Germany tried to salvage grapes frozen in an early frost. One of the newest producers is Canada, whose nippy Niagara Peninsula provides the perfect microclimate for growing — and freezing — ice wine's Riesling, Vidal and Seyval grapes. Canadian production of ice wine has skyrocketed from 96,000 bottles in 1993 to nearly a million in 2001. Wine lovers have to pay extra to get this cool taste. On average, because of the exacting processing, ice wines run $45--for just half a bottle.