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“It’s not supposed to be easy, that’s why it feels tastes so good,” goes an old saying that holds true for the annual ice wine harvest.
Like many wineries in the Okanagan, Summerhill was on-call waiting for temperatures to dip below -8°C to finally pick this season’s grapes.
Not for the faint of heart, crews braved temperatures as low as -17°C for three days while picking roughly 20 tonnes of ice wine grapes.
February is rather late in the season to harvest ice wine, but this year’s harvest is looking like it will be worth the wait.
“The wait makes for desecration in the fruit because it repeatedly freezes and thaws, making a more concentrated juice and flavour,” explained winemaker Michael Alexander.
“I think this will be one of the ones to remember from my career, it really is pretty juice coming out of those presses right now.”
Now that the fruit is off the vine, the race against the clock begins to press the fruit.
“If we don't process it quickly when it's cold the grapes will warm up and the water inside the grapes will melt causing the sugar levels to drop,” said Alexander.
“If those levels get too low we can't call it ice wine anymore.”
Unlike presses used for normal wine grapes, ice wine presses take up to 36 hours to complete a single load.
Luckily, mater nature appears to be on the side of ice wine makers this season, as temperatures are forecast to stay cold well through the weekend.
If all goes well, this season’s vintage will appear on store shelves in about a year.
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