What is Ice Wine? Where and When is it made?!

Ice wine is made from grapes that are required to go through at least one hard frost. This concentrates the sugars and results in a very sweet wine. It is expensive because it’s risky to leave grapes on the vine past the normal harvesting time.

When the wine is made varies. The grapes can’t be picked until after at least one hard freeze, so the wineries have to wait until nature takes its course. Then they have to rush out regardless of weather conditions, harvest the grapes while they’re still frozen, and press them for wine as soon as possible.

Austria and Germany make ice wines, but the Niagara Frontier area of upstate New York and Ontario are known for it in North America. Canada has rather stringent requirements and definitions for what can be called ice wine, which increase the risk of making it and hence its price.

Our daughter lives in Buffalo and she took us to Inniskillen Winery in Ontario, which is reknown for its ice wine, for a tour and a tasting. I’m not a fan of sweet wines so I have to say I have no memorable, fond experiences to report from the tasting. But I bet it would be wonderful with a triple creme cheese on a thin, sweet cracker for dessert!

Ice wine (Icewine) is a sweet wine. When the temperature is low, the use of the vine naturally frozen grapes wine. The birth of ice wine is a beautiful mistake. Two hundred years ago in Germany, vineyards suffered suddenly struck frost. Wine farmers to save the loss, had to be wrong, will squeeze the frozen grapes, fermented wine the traditional way. Who knows, unintentional positive outcomes, led to full bodied, unique flavor of wine, creating the advent of the ice wine.
It is said that the world except Austria, Germany and Canada and a few countries, few places in temperature, climate and conditions are with various aspects of the situation, before we can brew high-quality ice wine. As a unique mode of production, yield scarce, its also a matter of course expensive. According to experts, the determination of the nutritional content of ice almost necessary for the human body contains dozens of enzymes and amino acids, there is beauty, beauty, health and other functions, is a rare and superior wines.

Icewine (or ice wine or, in German, Eiswein) is an expensive type of dessert wine produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. The sugars and other dissolved solids do not freeze, but the water does, so the result is a concentrated, often very sweet wine. In the case of ice wines, the freezing happens before the fermentation, not afterwards. Unlike the grapes from which other dessert wines, such as Sauternes, Tokaji, or Trockenbeerenauslese, are made, ice wine grapes should not be affected by Botrytis cinerea or noble rot. Only healthy grapes keep in good shape until the opportunity for ice wine harvest, which may be in the next calendar year. This gives ice wine its characteristic refreshing sweetness balanced by high acidity. When the grapes are free of Botrytis, they are said to come in "clean".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_wine

Basically it's made from grapes that have undergone a frost, and are picked/pressed while frozen.

Because the sugars etc in the grape don't freeze you get a more concentrated juice when you press the grapes.

And for when & where it's made - Canada & Germany mainly, and it's made in winter.

It is made in places that are mild enough for grape growing during the summer, but then freeze once the grapes are done maturing.
Places where it is made include the Finger Lakes region of New York state, Germany, Austria, Canada, France, New Zealand, and Israel.

Sawtooth, Koenig, and Ste. Chapelle are some Idaho wineries that make it.

The sugars and other dissolved solids do not freeze, but the water does, so the result is a concentrated, often very sweet wine. In the case of ice wines, the freezing happens before the fermentation, not afterwards. Unlike the grapes from which other dessert wines are made, ice wine grapes should not be affected by Botrytis cinerea or noble rot. Only healthy grapes keep in good shape until the opportunity for ice wine harvest, which may be in the next calendar year. This gives ice wine its characteristic refreshing sweetness balanced by high acidity. When the grapes are free of Botrytis, they are said to come in "clean".

The most famous (and expensive) ice wines are German Eiswein and Canadian ice wine. It is also made in the United States, Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic,Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Australia, France, New Zealand and Israel in smaller quantity.

Although Niagara-on-the-Lake's Inniskillin is traditionally considered the largest producer in term of volume, many smaller New World wineries in the Niagara Region have made their presence known with high quality products that have won awards around the world.

Natural ice wines require a hard freeze (by law in Canada a minimum of ?8 °C (17 °F) and in Germany a minimum of ?7 °C (19 °F)) to occur sometime after the grapes are ripe, which means that the grapes may hang on the vine for several months following the normal harvest. If a freeze does not come quickly enough, the grapes may rot and the crop will be lost. If the freeze is too severe, no juice can be extracted. Vineland Winery in Ontario once broke their pneumatic press in the 1990s while pressing the frozen grapes because they were too hard (the temperature was close to ?20 °C. The fruit must be pressed while it is still frozen.

The high sugar level in the must leads to a slower than normal fermentation. It may take months to complete the fermentation (compared to days or weeks for regular wines) and special strains of yeasts should be used. Because of the lower yield of grape musts and the difficulty of processing, ice wines are significantly more expensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_wine