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Posts Tagged“ice wine”

Vineyard Visuals: Icewine 2013 Harvest at Leonard Oakes Winery

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Icewine 2013 Harvest @ Leonard Oakes from Bryan Calandrelli on Vimeo. Mother Nature did not disappoint the harvest crew at Leonard Oakes Winery as the week of January 21st provided more than enough time for Jonathan Oakes and gang to pull the rest of their grapes from the 2012-growing season. Bone-chilling temperatures and a massive snowfall didn’t make it comfortable or easy but it did ease nerves and make for a long window to press out their frozen grapes. This quick interview and series of images is a glimpse into what it was like the day of the vidal harvest.…

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Niagara Icewine Update: We Haven’t Started Getting Nervous… Yet

Niagara ice wine harvest... from 2009

With this weekend’s projected record-warm temperatures, it feels a little weird to be preparing for a weekend of ice wine themed activities across the border. In a region that can usually set its watch to that first big, bone-chilling weather event in early January, Mother Nature has only teased Niagara with a very narrow window for an ice wine harvest so far this year and people are wondering if there will be a full harvest in 2013. “I haven’t started getting nervous yet,” says Jonathan Oakes, winemaker at Leonard Oakes Winery. Oakes is the go-to winemaker in Niagara USA on…

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Ice Wine: I’m Really Trying To Like It

A large amount of residual sugar makes me dizzy. Dessert wine tends to remind me of childhood cough syrup albeit with new and improved flavors. I hated that god awful faux cherry elixir. When the New York Cork Report gets together once a year to taste the best New York State has to offer, I sit the sweet flight out. On tasting menus in fancy pants restaurants, I bargain away my last wine pairing in the name of ‘something sparkling.” The nuance of late harvest anything is generally lost on me. Is the aversion in my head? Bias left over…

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Arrowhead Spring Vineyards 2008 Vidal Ice Wine

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Late harvest and ‘iced’ wines — those made with grapes frozen in commercial freezers before processing — are common in New York. Real deal ice wine is not. This is the real deal and you can certainly taste the difference. Arrowhead Spring Vineyards 2008 Vidal Blanc Ice Wine ($38) smells like juicy ripe peaches and apricots drizzled with floral lavendar honey. The nose is intense and ever-moving as the wine warms to room temperature. The palate is explosive in its concentration and complexity, bursting with stone fruit flavors along with those of hay, honey, cooked sugar, golden raisin, dried apricots and lavender…

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Finally! A Good Reason to Open Cab Franc Ice Wine

I’m probably being a bit unfair in the title of this post. After all, some of the region’s top producers make a cabernet franc ice wine. And on occasion, it’s nicely made, drinkable. The problem is that too often, it tastes like ballpark nachos. I suppose the science types among us might be able to explain why that is. But even if it’s good, it’s hard to find a good occasion to open a bottle. How much can you drink? Let’s pretend, for a moment, that you recently purchased a bottle on a wine trip at one of the lesser…

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4 a.m. is the Right Time for Ice Wine

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By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Region Editor The landscape along the Lake Ontario shoreline-hugging roadway that stretches eastward to Orleans County – Route 18 – pretty much becomes desolate once you pass Olcott. And it only seems more desolate at four in the morning on the coldest day of the winter. Lyndonville’s distance from the center of the Niagara Wine Trail keeps me from making this journey as often as I’d like to, but on this morning there was no hesitation – it was Leonard Oakes Estate Winery’s annual ice wine harvest. As I made my way through an apple orchard…

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Did You Hear We Make Icewine Up Here in Niagara USA?

By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Correspondent The more I get out and see what some other wine regions sell as dessert wine, and specifically how much they charge, the more I realize just how precious the climate of the Niagara USA wine region really is. While they do get a lot of local press, it's great to see national recognition of these small wineries' icewines. Schulze Vineyards & Winery just received a gold medal for their 2008 Vidal Icewine at the Riverside Wine Competition in California. Ann and Martin Schulze were thrilled when they read the news on the New York…

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New York Shows Off Its Ice Wine During the First New York Ice Wine Festival

By Melissa Dobson, Finger Lakes News Correspondent Mention ice wine and most everyone thinks of Canada and the Niagara Ice Wine Festival held each year in Niagara-On-The-Lake, now in its 14th year. Although Niagara On-the-Lake, Ontario may be the first region to come to mind, New York's producers are looking to show off their offerings and educate wine lovers on the distinctiveness of their ice wines during the first New York Ice Wine Festival being held at Casa Larga Vineyards in Fairport, NY just outside of Rochester. Kicking off on February 8, 2009 and running through the month of February,…

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