From a happy accident in 18th-century Germany to world-class winemaking in Niagara, Canada’s icewine story is one of innovation, endurance, and a little winter magic.
Long before it became a Canadian icon alongside maple syrup and poutine, icewine began as a delicious mistake — born not from a winemaker’s plan, but from a winter frost that caught German farmers off guard in the 1700s. Not wanting to lose their entire grape harvest, they pressed the frozen grapes, creating icewine as we know it — or “eiswein” as they originally called it.
First introduced to Canada in 1973 by Walter Hainle of Hainle Vineyards in B.C.’s Okanagan region, icewine soon found new champions in the Niagara region, where a group of winemakers embraced the technique — and haven’t looked back since. Traditionally considered a dessert wine, Niagara producers have reimagined icewine’s flavour and style in remarkable ways. Today, Ontario stands among the world’s largest icewine producers, with the Niagara region offering the perfect climate for crafting this celebrated Canadian specialty.
Not only does Canada export approximately $23 million CDN in icewines annually, predominantly to the US, China Japan and Taiwan, but Niagara-on-the-Lake also plays host to icewine-focused festivals, galas and experiences, and Niagara icewines have become consistent award-winners at global competitions. There is a strong icewine culture in the Niagara region, even though the majority of these cold-crafted wines are exported to other countries.
At Inniskillin’s Niagara estate, winemaker Nicholas Gizuk carries forward a legacy that helped put Canadian icewine on the world stage. The winery’s first commercial icewine was crafted in 1984 by founders Karl Kaiser and Donald Ziraldo. Today, visitors can taste award-winning vintages in the winery’s iconic tasting room, where bottles of Vidal and Riesling Icewine showcase the precision of a craft bound by Canada’s strict standards.
Inniskillin is said to have put Canadian icewines on the international map. The first commercially produced icewine was made by the late Karl Kaiser and Donald Ziraldo at Inniskillin Winery in 1984. (Unfortunately, in 1983, Inniskillin’s first attempted commercial crop was entirely eaten by birds a day before the harvest was scheduled to begin.) In 1991, Inniskillin’s 1989 Vidal Icewine earned the prestigious Prix d’Honneur at Vinexpo in Bordeaux — one of only 15 awards chosen from thousands of international entries. The recognition sparked global interest in Canadian icewine and helped propel the industry onto the world stage.
“We have this beautiful climate that allows us to grow these grapes and hang them for a long period of time,” says Nicholas Gizuk, current winemaker at Inniskillin’s Niagara estate. Right now, there’s only one place in the world that can make beautiful sparkling rosé, red wine, big red, big white wine and icewine. Nobody else has the climate that we have to do it.”
“If you looked at us on a longitude graph, we go through some great regions of Italy, some great regions of France, right? We’re on this beautiful latitude line where we have lots of heat units. Our season is great for growing grapes because we’re ideally suited. We get this big heat wave in July to really push our growing degree days, but in the fall, we get these beautiful cold nights like we’re experiencing right now,” he says.
Even with the favourable growing and winemaking conditions typically found in the Niagara region, producing icewine is not without its challenges. Chief among them is Canada’s strict regulations, ensuring that every bottle meets the country’s high standards for this renowned product.
“Icewine is the most regulated wine product in Canada,” Gizuk says. “In order to make a product and label it as icewine, you have to register your grapes by Nov. 15” with the VQA Ontario Wine Appellation Authority. When it’s time to pick, the temperature has to be at least minus eight degrees Celsius — for both harvesting and pressing — and that must be verified by a registered weather station within about 10 kilometres of the vineyard. “When that process is complete, you have to press your juice and send a sample of it to VQA, which gets checked by a third party. The residual sugar needs to be greater than 35 Brix. Once you’re approved at that stage, then you’re free to make your wine,” he says.
After the wine has been produced, samples have to be registered again with VQA and sent to a tasting panel for taste and packaging approval. To be icewine, “it has to be greater than seven per cent alcohol and has to have a residual sugar of greater than 150 grams,” Gizuk says. Once approved at this last stage, you can officially sell your Canadian icewine.
Regulations aside, the production of icewine can also be laborious and fickle. Each winery tends to have preferred picking temperatures beyond the required minus eight Celsius. Inniskillin tends to pick at -10 C, and typically at night to avoid any melt on the grapes that may affect the taste.
“When we press the grapes at -10 C, the sugar window is a bit more concentrated, so instead of being from 35 to 45 Brix, it’s usually about 38 to 43.” Gizuk says. “Now that’s specific to me because the way I like icewine. I don’t like [it] being too sweet. I always get the old adage: have you ever tried icewine? People say, oh, it’s too sweet for me, and then I say, have you tried Inniskillin icewine? Because when I pick at -10, that gives me the numbers that I’m looking for.”
At Stratus Vineyards, winemaker Dean Stoyka, top left, and his team hand-pick every grape, often in the middle of the night once temperatures hit minus eight degrees Celsius. Even blizzards can’t stop the harvest — a commitment reflected in Stratus’s refined wines and sleek Niagara tasting room.
At Stratus Vineyards, the “house style is to go and pick right at minus eight,” explains head winemaker Dean Stoyka. “We’re kind of waiting in the trucks, as soon as it is minus eight Celsius… we’re out there, we start harvesting.” He explains that some wineries prefer to let the grapes experience several freeze/thaw cycles before harvesting, which further concentrates the sugars. “We’re looking to get kind of the minimum, closer to the minimum amount of sugar because we’re looking for a little more freshness, a little bit more of that fruit character,” he says.
“Everything at Stratus is done by hand, no machine harvesting, just hand-picking.” Stoyka says. The picking is typically done at night, so the temperature doesn’t rise during harvest, in which case they would have to pause the harvest. “Typically, a harvest of icewine happens between December 15th and January 15th. There’s been a few years where it’s hung on past January 15th, and a few years it happened before December 15th, but usually that’s a pretty safe window,” he says.
“We have a team of anywhere from 20 to 40 people out there picking, so it’s a pretty big process. We have a big tractor, a lot of LED lights, it’s all well lit, and, they’re just picking it into little bins, then we put the little bins into a big bin, and I just go dump that into the press. And it’s really timely, icewine harvest happens in a 48 to 72 hour window.”
While the winemakers do everything they can to plan the harvest and monitor the weather, the weather doesn’t always work in their favour. Stoyka reminisces about the harvest of December, 2022. “The 23rd of December, it was going to minus eight. It was getting pretty cold into the 24th, but after that, it was warming up for like the next two weeks, showing all in the pluses. If you remember back then, there was that crazy blizzard, power was out everywhere, and no one could go anywhere. So, we had one window. It was either we pick that night during the blizzard or we wait two weeks, and then you’re losing volume. You’re losing the house-style that we’re known for,” he says. With the promise of bonus pay and lots of Tim Hortons fuel, Stoyka and his team managed to pick their harvest in the face of the blizzard. “I think we were the only winery that picked that night. But you know, it’s worth it,” he says. Other winemakers regretted not doing the same.
While climate change is a challenge, Stoyka says they’ve had a good track record. “There’s never been a harvest where we didn’t make icewine [in the Niagara region], since the very first icewine harvest. We’re in this very special microclimate that allows [grapes for] icewine to grow here. We can leave our vines above ground, no burying, no special covering,” he says.
It’s climate variability that concerns Gizuk. When the topic of global warming inevitably comes up, Gizuk is always asked the same question — ‘is it gonna get cold enough for icewine?’ His answer? “If you’ve been in Canada in February, it’s gonna get cold enough.”
“The thing that I really worry about with global warming is sporadic weather events. For example, this year we had a hailstorm come through in about April, which is right at the point where the plants are flowering. Plants, these vines, they self-pollinate, and if that flower gets damaged or gets knocked off, then we will not see a berry form in the cluster,” Gizuk says. When a hailstorm comes through when the plants are flowering, we can see quite a bit of damage and lower crop yields, he says.
Still, Niagara winemakers are ready to rise up and meet these challenges; from the first attempt at commercially-produced Ontario icewines in the 1980s to the more current harvests done through blizzards. Working with more traditional grapes such as Riesling or Vidal, to exploring different varietals and blends (think Cabernet Franc with Petit Bordeaux), the makers of Canadian icewines are here to stay and here to expand the industry even further.
“We’re big believers in icewine as a really important product to the Canadian wine program. And so, we’re going to be looking to make icewine every year to give customers a chance to see what this really special product is,” Stoyka says. “That’s what I actually love about Canadian icewine — making it really proves the extreme we’re willing to go to to make this really cool Canadian product.” Niagara icewines are here to stay, persisting through challenges that along; and no, they aren’t just for dessert.
Inniskillin
1499 Line 3, Niagara-On-The-Lake
inniskillin.com | @inniskillinwines
Stratus Vineyards
2059 Niagara Stone Rd., Niagara-on-the-Lake
stratuswines.com | @stratuswines
