The frosty temperatures at the beginning of the year brought winemakers a rich harvest. In many regions, ice wine could be harvested in January, after this was already possible in December.
The return of winter with icy night temperatures of up to minus eleven degrees made it possible to harvest ice wine again in January. “Ice wines are becoming increasingly rare,” said Ernst Büscher from the German Wine Institute (DWI) in Bodenheim, Rhine-Hesse: “Ice wine grapes were successfully harvested in many growing regions this year, but only from very few companies.”
Grapes must be frozen through
Because ice wine is always associated with a risk for winemakers: the grapes must be frozen solid for an ice wine harvest. This requires at least minus seven degrees for several hours. But since these icy temperatures have become increasingly rare in recent years, the areas registered for an ice wine harvest have also steadily declined in recent years, said Büscher.
For ice wine, the overripe grapes are harvested frozen and pressed. According to the DWI, ice wines usually have high residual sugar contents of significantly more than 100 grams per liter. Unlike southern sweet wines, they contain relatively little alcohol, often around seven percent by volume.
Riesling, Pinot Noir and Petit Manseng
It was said that some companies were able to harvest early ice wine as early as the beginning of December. Winegrowers in Rheinhessen, Württemberg, Franconia and on the Moselle were particularly successful in this.
In the first weeks of the new year, Pinot Noir grapes could be picked on the Ahr. In the Palatinate, a winery was able to harvest frozen grapes of the rare Petit Manseng variety. Frozen Riesling grapes could be harvested on the Hessische Bergstrasse. It was also possible to harvest frozen Cabernet Blanc grapes in Saxony, as well as in Baden – where Riesling could also be harvested for ice wine.