2022 Riesling Icewine

2022 Riesling Icewine

We’ve had a storied relationship with dessert wines over the years. The patience and heartbreak we’ve experienced from waiting for the perfect window of cold weather to materialize, before all walks of wildlife took their share, is not for the faint of heart.

But then 2022 arrived, and a record early cold snap on November 11th coaxed us right in. The home for this pristine Riesling fruit, just a five-minute drive up the hill from us with growers at Hidden Vines vineyard.

A pristine and concentrated capture of the vintage, our Riesling icewine is just electric in bottle with highly intense aromas of candied orange peel and caramelized pineapple bursting from the glass. Deep and complex and laser focused, the wine has flavours of honeyed and charred lemon with green apple sour patch kids and mango puree. It’s length carries on and on and on in an ethereal way and is truly something to savour, either in the glass and in the cellar.

WINEMAKER'S NOTES

Our first icewine since 2017! Our bundled-up team descended out into the dark just before 5am to Hidden Vines Vineyard’s beautiful high elevation site in East Kelowna. The temps hovered around -9/-8 degrees Celsius as we maneuvered in the cold and snow to bring in the frozen goods. The grapes were pressed while frozen yielding lightning fresh acidity and very sweet juice (a minimum of 35 Brix before the press was cut). After pressing, the must was transferred to stainless steel tanks for fermentation, and remained on fermentation lees for 2 months before bottling. 456 bottles made.

TECHNICAL INFO

100% Riesling
Alcohol: 7.8%
Residual Sweetness: 258 g/L
pH: 3.03
Total Acidity: 12.2 g/L

  • VINTAGE NOTES

    2022 was a very challenging season, but it produced some exceptional quality grapes and resulting wines. The winter of 21/22 was harsh, with many vines exhibiting primary bud damage following a cold snap of -26.5 around Christmas. Above average rainfall in May charged the soil with water and gave the vines everything they needed to hit the ground running after a long winter and late bud break. The rain continued into June meaning no irrigation was needed for the vines till much later than average and allowed the cover crop to flourish.

    Summer was mild though some hot spells in late July and early August helped push the season along. September and October were perfect for developing flavours in the grapes while not having too much sugar produced. This resulted in balanced wines with moderate alcohol. A cold snap in early November just after all the sparkling and still wines had been harvested and meant that we were able to produce our first icewine since 2017.