Ice wine

Ice wine, or Eiswein, is an intensely sweet dessert wine made from grapes left on the vine until they freeze, then pressed while still frozen so that only a few drops of concentrated, sugary juice run from each berry. Because water in the grape crystallises as ice and is left behind, the must that escapes is rich in sugar, acid and flavour — yielding a luscious, honeyed wine whose great sweetness is held in balance by a searing thread of acidity. It is a specialty of cold-winter wine countries, above all Germany, Austria and Canada, made mainly from Riesling and the hardy hybrid Vidal. Tiny yields, the gamble of waiting for a hard frost and the labour of a frozen night harvest make it one of the most expensive and prized of all wines, sold in small half-bottles and poured as a finish to a meal.