Harvest time for ice wine

With a cold alert in effect tonight, it doesn’t seem like the kind of day you’d want to be out picking grapes. But when the weather gets this cold, Niagara growers bundle up to get into their fields to pick ice wine grapes. The temperatures are expected to dip to about -12 overnight — perfect for the grapes — but terrible for those doing the picking.

Niagara-on-the-Lake grape grower Matthias Oppenlaender, has been watching the forecast for the best time to start picking his 20 acres of ice wine grapes.

“They’re starting to dehydrate, starting to shrivel up.”

That freezing and thawing is what gives ice wine its flavour. Now all they need is for the temperatures to plummet below -12. Double-digit minus temperatures in December is an early Christmas gift: the earlier they pick, the more grapes they save.

“Obviously it’s very risky. As you can see, all the grapes are netted here. They’re exposed to the elements. They’re exposed to wildlife.”

A sea of netting gives some protection from the birds; and then there’s the hazard of protecting yourself from the wind.

“Growers don’t like to pick ice wine grapes in windy conditions because the workers can’t stay outside for any length of time.”

The conditions for picking ice wine grapes are difficult. but the payoffs can be be huge. At $55 for a half-litre of ice wine, the 2,500 tonnes of ice wine grapes in Niagara are worth about $60 million to Ontario’s economy.