Fizzgig
Enjoy your travels, wherever they take you! May th
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2007
Ice Wine: I am not much of a wine drinker (I prefer Coke ), but Dh nejoys it and has learned a lot during our monthly wine and cheese nights wit hour German and French friends. So here is what he tells me about Ice Wine (other than he LOVES it):
Ice wine is made by leaving the grapes on living vines as winter sets in. As the grapes freeze they begin to dehydrate. Lots of liquid is gone but the sugars do not evaporate. Thus, what liquid remains in the grapes is very concentrated and sweet. As the grapes are now very small and shriveled it takes substantially more to press a bottle and some may be lost in the freezing process so the price sky rockets. The result is a very sweet dessert wine. DH says it goes excellent with the soufle at Palos. DH also notes that he makes this soufflee (true) and if you bring the ice wine he will make the souffle Cheaper "psuedo ice wines" are made after the grapes have been thorugh one frost and are less sweet or have an added sweetener.
Danke, Hadley! That's a much better explanation than I could have come up with. My best was going to be, "More sugar content than normal, and the wine makings (grapes, or muscadines in my case) are supposed to be harvested after it gets cold." Your DH's explanation helps me understand the price difference on that stuff! It was $21/bottle for the muscadine ice wine. *yeouch* Oh, but it was gooooood!
Oh, and DH just thought it -wrong- that I put the rest of the bottle of wine in a leftover baby bottle. I wasn't going to fool with the cork any more--my wine now has a screw top cap!
*chuckle* Have a great day, everyone!