*Since this item is sourced from a cooperating importer, it may take 1-2 business days longer than usual to ship.
California's "Ice Wine" is extremely rare and available in limited quantities
"Ice wine" is famous as an extremely sweet German dessert wine. It is made by ripening grapes that endure the cold of winter. As the moisture content decreases, the juice becomes concentrated and the sugar content increases, resulting in a sweet finish.
Normally, ice wine can only be made in areas where the temperature drops below freezing, as the name suggests, but this is brewed using a method called cryo-extraction, in which the grapes are artificially frozen after they are fully ripe.
Natural freezing can lead to damage from wild animals that can ruin the perfectly ripe grapes, making the quality unstable, but the advantage of this method is that it allows you to select the highest quality perfectly ripe grapes.
Only the pressed and condensed juice is transferred to barrels that have been used for several years, and the wine is fermented and aged 100% in barrels (7 months) before being bottled in the spring.
It has a bubbling aroma of white peach and pear with flavors of white peach, honey and buttered toast. It goes well with pies and fruit pies with biscuit crust, and can also be enjoyed with spicy ethnic dishes.
Volume 375ml Alcohol content 8%
*This product is purchased from a partner importer, so it may take an extra 1-2 business days to ship.
There is a good reason dessert wines are rare—they are hard to craft. If something can go wrong in the winemaking process it does, and it has taken me years to build up the knowledge to avoid all the pitfalls.
In the past, successfully making very sweet wine was unusual—dependent on specific weather conditions—and since very sweet things were rare (honey comes to mind) they became sought after. Famous examples from Sauterne and Tokay have always gotten high praise, but today the rest of dessert wine's many incarnations are rarely discussed or reviewed. Partly this is because they are polarizing wines—with a minority loving them unconditionally and a majority dismissing them. Also, in recent history sugars in drinks (high fructose corn syrup!) became ubiquitous and the interest waned in dessert wines.
Dessert wines can be made in so many ways. From late harvesting, drying the grapes, noble rot infection (botrytis), and natural or manufactured freezing. The common feature of these techniques being to concentrate sugars and aromatics compounds of the grape—and magnifying their attributes. The result is a heady and complex experience.
We have been making dessert wine from Viognier since 1996 and over the years have learned what attributes we like to see in this wine. When choosing to make a dessert wine out of Riesling for the first time, we knew we had the experience, but this great grape surprised us. Riesling's perfume and natural acidity are wonderful attributes that bring a level of drinkability and deliciousness we hadn't seen before.
You can't make real ice wine in California, but making it our way?taking healthy grapes to a commercial freezer—has its advantages. Instead of waiting for a rare day that is cold enough to pick frozen grapes on the vine, we can choose to harvest when the grapes are at the peak of flavor.
Our ice wine grapes are picked, driven to a commercial freezer, and then brought to the winery a few days later for pressing. By pressing grapes while still frozen, ice crystals are left behind, and only concentrated grape juice is recovered. The juice is drained into older barrels for fermentation and aging and then bottled into half bottles in the spring.
The evocative aromas of peach and pear are followed by flavors of honey, peach and buttered toast. This full throttle sweet wine is a perfect match for fruit desserts like pie or cobbler and for the more adventurous has enough floral Riesling character to be used as chutney with spicy southern Indian dishes or Thai cuisine.
Blend: 100% Riesling | Alc: 8.0% | Vinification: 100% Neutral Oak | Barrel Aging: 7Months | Total Production: 345 cases (375 ml bottle)
Press Reviews
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
“We finished the tasting with the 2016 Riesling Kick On Dessert, the finest vintage of this cuvée to date. Lychee, honey, white flowers and hints of white peach and apricot give way to a gorgeously rich, impeccably balance sweet, downright irresistible dessert wine .”- JD 94 Points
Antonio Galloni's Vinous
“The 2016 Riesling Kick On Ranch Dessert Wine is an absolutely delicious dessert wine that emphasizes freshness. Orchard fruit, sweet floral notes and mint add brightness and aromatic lift. The 250 grams of residual sugar are not especially evident.” ? AG 92 points