China - the sleeping ice wine giant? (part 2)

And now for the continuation - How China has affected world ice wine production...

Ice wine is deliciously sweet, and due to the many things that have to go right for it to be produced (see part 1) and the low juice yield from the grapes, it is very expensive. So it is very sought after in many places, and also a target for counterfeiters. Some Niagara Peninsula producers were shocked to find that "icewine" was being sold under their brand in China.

There is, apparently, a lot of adulterated table wine being sold as icewine in China, which has a negative impact on the reputation of brands making it the right way, and therefore getting the special characteristics of the wine style that are so yummy.

However, that is not to say that all ice wine being made in China is fake! Changyu winery partnered up with a Canadian company some years ago to develop an expansive vineyard specifically for icewine production. Those Vidal vines are now coming into full production - all 5000 mu (about 333 hectares) of them (there is some confusion over the actual area planted. Some web sources say 5000 acres, but two signs I saw at Changyu say they have 5000 mu (1 mu = 0.067 ha)). The plan is to make icewine under similar conditions as required by the Canadian VQA system, and supply a quality product (Changyu Golden Valley Icewine) to the domestic market.

Changyu Golden Valley Icewine bottles on display at the Yantai International Wine Festival. These are the Golden Diamond wines. There are also two higher price point labels, the Blue Diamond and the Black Diamond ones. Prices for 500ml bottles were 228RMB, 418RMB and 838RMB, respectively. This translated into approximately USD33, 60 and 120, resp.

Some information about the icewine vineyard development. Picture taken in the Changyu Wine Museum, in Yantai, Shandong Province.

The location was chosen so that conditions for quality icewine production would be met most every year, and because the scale is so massive, that means a lot of wine can be produced!

A photo of a photo of the vineyard in Huanren - appropriately icy! Picture taken in the Changyu Wine Museum.

Even considering this is all in China, I still wonder about where they will get all the labour to tend the vines and harvest the fruit!

A photo of a photo of a "Hardworking farmers harvesting grapes in coldness." Picture taken in the Changyu Wine Museum.

And since China does things big, just how significant is this planting in Huanren? In 2008, about 6500 tonnes of grapes were registered for icewine production in the Niagara Peninsula. The Changyu development should produce about 1000 tonnes of grapes (significantly more come from vineyards other than theirs). So a significant boost. Even more significant when the latest info says that only 1750 tonnes were registered to be made into icewine for the 2009 vintage, due to a downturn in the icewine market.

While I'm not a huge fan of the wine style (too sweet for me, generally), it certainly has, and deserves, a place in the market, and is also a good reminder of how versatile a product the grape is!

NB, you might be interested in reading this article, which has more detail on the plantings in Huanren...

China - the sleeping ice wine giant? (part 1)

Another chapter in the China travels series...

This time, its about something that was developed in Germany, really took off in Canada, and now it looks like China is poised to take over.

Ice wine. The luscious nectar made from frozen grapes, it is highly prized by some, and highly priced by many!!

Why is it so exclusive? To make the real stuff, the grapes need to be naturally frozen, and picked when the temperature is -8C or lower, and will stay that way until all the pressing is finished (these are Canadian rules - some other countries have their own regulations, but the Canadians seem to have the most comprehensive set, designed to ensure the integrity of their icewine (all one word, as opposed to the generic "ice wine" product)). That's pretty cold, and throw in the fact that it could be windy as well, and you're looking at a temperature of -16, easy, with the wind chill!

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to sit in a mechanical harvester and collect all those grapes into a hopper? It would be nice, but you wouldn't get many grapes that way, as by that time of the year, the cluster rachis has gotten brittle, and the berries fall off far too easily! So the grapes must be hand picked! Sometimes in the dark, when it's the coldest and to ensure that the grapes do not get above -8C. Similarly, the grape press is usually brought outside of the winery and the work done out in the cold. To make it even more difficult, extracting the juice from the grapes takes a long time, so the whole process is one big freeze-fest!

And just what is it about this procedure that results in such a luscious wine? It's a concentration effect. Pure water will start to freeze at 0C, so if you have water with something else in it, those other things won't freeze at that temperature.

So if you take a glass of juice (Kool-Aid was one of my favourites!), put it in the freezer and wait for a while - until it's partially frozen and there's quite a bit of ice in it, take it out and pour the remaining liquid into another glass. Now you have one glass that has ice in it, and another with the juice. If you actually do this, you'll note that the ice (if you wash off any remaining juice) is clear - not coloured like the juice. What you have there is pretty much pure water, which has been frozen out of the juice. If you taste the juice in the other glass, you should notice that it's a lot sweeter, and stronger tasting than the original juice - what you have done is concentrated the juice by freezing out some of the water in it.

The making of icewine uses the same principle. As the grapes freeze, ice forms inside the berry, but all the good stuff - the sugar and flavour compounds - are concentrated. So when the grapes are pressed, a concentrated sugary syrup of juice comes out, which can have twice the concentration of the original juice (the colder it is, the more concentrated the juice). This is what helps to make the wine sweet, and also have its intense aroma and flavour.

And this is why the temperature has to be so cold, and has to stay that way. If the grapes warm up, then there is not as much ice in the berries, and the juice won't have the same amount of concentration.

There aren't too many traditional grape growing areas that have sufficiently cold temperatures consistently, enough to make ice wine. As well, the temperatures can't get too cold, or the vines will freeze and die. Vitis vinifera, which is used to make the vast majority of wine in the world, can survive to around -18C if the conditions are right. So there is a relatively small window between cold enough and "*#!#%*! The vines are dead!!"

Germany was probably the first place where ice wine was made, but the conditions for good ice wine production aren't too common. The Niagara Peninsula, between Lakes Erie and Ontario in Canada is an area that seems to get appropriate conditions pretty well every year, even if they may have to wait until February before they arrive!

Those with quick minds would probably like to point out that this is all very inconvenient, so why not pick some grapes, stick them in a freezer, and press them in there - none of this mucking about in the cold, picking grapes, at least! This technique certainly works, but there is something about having those grapes hanging out there for so long before they're picked that helps to make the wine extra-special. The Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute at Brock University has done quite a bit of research into icewine production, and they are uncovering some of the factors that affect icewine quality - one of which is likely to be "hang-time" and freeze/thaw cycles.

So how does China come into this discussion? China, as I may have mentioned in passing before, is a big place. They have a huge spread of climates within the borders, and areas suitable for ice wine production are among the country's resources.

Book now for part 2 of China - the sleeping ice wine giant...