Liquid Gold

The always-cool appeal of icewine.

- Kate Dingwall

ICEWINE HAS THREE crucial ingredients: grapes, alchemy and a lot of luck.

The process starts in the dead of winter. To make the silky-sweet wine Canada is globally known for, grapes must be picked when the temperature dips below -8C. A degree higher won't do. “You want to make sure grapes have the consistency of a frozen pea,” says Eric Pearson, winemaker at Reif Estate Winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

But chilly temperatures like that often hit in the dead of night. Winemakers will wait, watching the thermostat, until it's cold enough to head out, with cloudy breath and headlamps strapped on, to quickly pick the grapes before the temperature ascends. It's a harvest that's always racing against the clock—and the mercury.