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Rubrica di Lady Ayame

Have you ever had Canadian Ice Wine?

Jun 18, 2021

Dear Cafetalk Community,

How are you doing? I hope all is well with you. Canada is getting pretty hot now. Before I arrived here (from Los Angeles) five years ago, I had an impression that Canada was going to be cool in the summer because it's soooo~ cold in the winter. I was wrong. It gets pretty hot here too! 
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[Canadian Ice Wine]
Have you ever heard of Canadian ice wine? It seems as though most people already know about ice wine, but it was my first time trying some. I was surprised to see that it tastes quite good, unique, and special. I don't know about the alcohol content, but it's like a dessert wine. It's very sweet!

[How it is made:]
Based on my shallow understanding so far, the winery freezes the grapes in their vineyard. Then, they squeeze the grape juice from frozen grapes. The juice is very concentrated and the ice wine turns out delicious and tasty!

[The online dictionary describes it as follows:]

Icewine
 is a unique sweet wine made from grapes that have been left to freeze naturally on the vine. Pressed while still frozen, the grapes yield a sweet concentrated juice that is highly flavourful.
[Reference: Hyperlink to the website:]
https://www.vqaontario.ca/Wines/Icewine#:~:text=Icewine%20is%20a%20unique%20sweet,juice%20that%20is%20highly%20flavourful.

In case you didn't know about it, I thought I would recommend Canadian Ice Wine to you. You have to like the sweet taste, but it's a very nice and refreshing alcoholic beverage. It's mostly from the Niagara Falls region (on the Canadian side, of course.)

By the way, I tried to order it online because I wanted my mother to try some ice wine. She lives in California, US. However, the online stores don't ship alcohol internationally. As a result, I had to look at online stores in the US that ship within the US. I thought it would be rather odd to order Canadian Ice Wine from a store in the US. After that, I gave up. 

So, I thought about getting some for my husband and me. Including the shipping, ordering it online turned out to be quite expensive. Then, I thought of looking on the website for the nearby liquor store. I discovered that it's about 1/3 of the price that it was online! So, I'm glad I can pick some up in the nearby store for much less. I'm in Canada after all. It shouldn't be so hard to get Canadian ice wine, right?

Perhaps, it will be somewhat expensive in Asian countries because it's imported from Canada, but I think it'll be a lovely touch for a special occasion. I hope you like my recommendation! If you try some or had some before, let me know how you liked it in the "comments." Thank you!

See you soon! Stay cool in the summer heat!

Warmest regards,

Lady Ayame

(Patricia Ayame Thomson)  


Ice or iced wine? Tradition vs. innovation in Upstate New York's vineyards  - newyorkupstate.com | Ice wine, Frozen grapes, Wine desserts

Everything You Need to Know About Canadian Icewine

This column was published by the author in their personal capacity.
The opinions expressed in this column are the author's own and do not reflect the view of Cafetalk.

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