Re: icewine is trademarked

Salut/Hi Bill Spohn,

le/on 01 Apr 2004 00:05:10 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Thanks for an intelligent and intelligible answer!

Check out this article on Icewine. Both the terms "Icewine" note spelling not Ice wine, and Eiswein are trademarked in Germany and Canada. Both countries agreed in principal. What is really boils down to is to prevent producers from making Icewine/Eiswein in the freezer. The whole debate continues to carry on, and if you check (I don't have time) you will find, I believe, that the practice of natrually frozen production has been adapted by the US body looking after alcohol, the one that has replaced the ATF. Perhaps an American Vintner could shed some light on this. Article

First of all, if you don't have time to check on something, then you shouldn't even post it as a belief. Just say you're not sure and invite others to comment. Secondly, in the US, there is no law or regulation (at least at the federal level) that prevents a winery from making wine from artificially frozen grapes and labelling the result Ice Wine. There has been some discussion at the ATTTB about changing this but, AFAIK, nothing has been done about it.

Vino To reply, add "x" between letters and numbers of e-mail address.

Apparently I must stand corrected. I based my post on information obtained from an individual I have always considered reliable. In this case he apparently wasn't. I nosed around on the TTB site and came up with the following:

This appears to be the regulation referred to in the press release attached to Dave's note. I try to keep up with such things but it seems I missed this one.

One curious thing is that the regulation refers to "partial freezing of the grapes on the vine". I can't quite figure out what this means. In any case, I was in error and will concede that.

Vino To reply, add "x" between letters and numbers of e-mail address.

Salut/Hi Vino,

I hesitate to jump in again here,

le/on Thu, 01 Apr 2004 22:53:27 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Well, if you think about it, when freezing grapes with pretty high sugar content (as in grapes left until it's cold enough to freeze them), the freezing process starts with the production of crystals of pure water, thereby concentrating the remaining juice even further. (This is standard physical chemistry and is the basis of cryo-extraction). This process will continue, with ever stronger sugar solution being produced in the grape, until a constant freezing mixture is arrived at. At this concentration, a mixture of sugar and water (simplifying impossibly) will start to freeze out, until the whole contents of the grape is frozen solid. But there's little point in seeking to press something that's frozen entirely solid, as nothing will run out until it warms up.

So in actual FACT, when making icewine you don't press grapes that are frozen entirely solid, but ones that are strictly, only partially frozen, with part of the water unable to be pressed out, because it's still ice. Hence the expression.

At least, that's MY interpretation of what's going on.

Excuse this ignorant Antipodean.....

Does having certification from the US ATF mean that, not only do the grapes have to be "naturally frozen" they must be harvested by gun toting smokers to bear the name "Icewinesmokem & shoot'em"?

It's just a thought !

asama bin125 o' st.helier

I suspect you're right. The same thought occurred to me after I did the posting.

Vino To reply, add "x" between letters and numbers of e-mail address.

Which is 100% correct, of course.

M.

What you are citing is called anecdotal evidence which, although sometimes useful, cannot be used to substantiate any general conclusions. Indeed, if the experience you describe were typical, little or no icewine would ever be made. It would simply not be commercially feasible.

Ian provided what I consider to be a very plausible explanation of what the term "partially frozen" means. A subsequent poster whose expertise I have come to respect confirmed Ian's suggestion.

Do you have any other explanation for what "partially frozen" means? I'm always open to differing opinions if they are supported by reliable evidence.

Vino To reply, add "x" between letters and numbers of e-mail address.

Here are the regs;

Icewine The wine shall be a late harvested wine.

The wine shall be produced entirely from one or more vitis vinifera grape varieties in item 1 of Appendix B or the hybrid grape variety Vidal, naturally frozen on the vine, picked while the air temperature is minus 8°C or lower and immediately pressed after picking in a continuous process.

The wine shall have an actual alchoholic content not less than 7.0% and not greater than 14.9% by volume.

The wine shall be produced as a varietal wine in accordance with the requirements for varietal wines in this Table.

Grape juice or grape must intended for the production of icewine may be artificially refrigerated to a temperature of not less than minus 4°C.

No freeze concentration of juice, grape must or wine shall be used.

The brix level of the juice after each pressing shall be at least 32° when measured after transfer to the fermentation vessel.

The finished wine shall be produced from a must that achieves a computed average of not less than 35° brix.

The residual sugar at bottling shall result exclusively from the natural sugar of the grapes and shall be not less than 125 g/L.

The actual alcohol shall result exclusively from the natural sugar of the grapes.

Subject to subsection 6 (2), sweet reserve may be added if the minimum brix level of the grapes used in the sweet reserve was 32 degrees brix at harvest.

The production of the wine shall be monitored so that the manufacturer can provide the information on production required by Ontario Regulation

VQA - Viticultural Area - VQA

Vintage year

Grape variety or varieties Only the sweetness descriptions set out in Table 3 (Ice Wine) shall be used on the principal display panel.

This is taken from Vintage Canada, author Tony Aspler ISBN 0-07-551499-0 Canada is infact the world's largest producer of Icewine or Eiswein. Icewine is the product of frozen grapes. Allowed to hang on the vine until the mercury drops to at least minus 7 C.At this temperature begins to freeze. When the grapes are picked in their frozen state they are as hard as marbles the small amount of juice recovered will be intensely sweet, viscus, and high in acidity. Since the berries must remain frozen, the pressing is done "al fresco" sometimes outside. The presses are moved outdoors. The press must be worked slowly otherwise the bunches of grapes will turn to a block of ice and yield nothing. Some wineries throw rice husks into the press which pierce the skins of the berries and create a channel for the few drops of juice to flow. Sometimes it takes 3 hours for the first drop of juice to appear. Roughly speaking 1 kg of grapes will produce sufficient juice to ferment to produce 1- 375 ml. bottle. The longer the grapes hang on the vine the less the yields will be. If we get a cold snap early and the right elements are present, and we meet the VQA guidelines ( 8 degrees C or colder and 32 Brix) we can harvest. This is when the term partially frozen grapes may apply. However no producer wants to harvest until the grapes are rock solid. Grapes that are partially frozen produce inferior Icewine, as the water is not totally pressed away. What is left than is a less concentrated liquid. Dilution will lower the Brix level and if it drops below 36, we can not call it Icewine. As a producer of Ontario of VQA Icewine since 1995 we currently produce the following: Vidal, Riesling, Gewurztraminer (my favourite) and new this year from the 2002 Vintage a red Icewine made from Cabernet Sauvignon. Vino, I dont' know where you live, but if you have never had an Ontario Icewine, email me direct with your address and I will send you one. Dave.

"Vino" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

What appears to be the applicable US regulation regarding the use of the term "ice wine" on a label (see my earlier post in this thread) suggests that such wine is normally made from grapes that are "partially frozen" when harvested. Combined with your suggestion as to what that term means, then the US regulations appear to require the use of a technique that produces inferior wines. Something is wrong with this picture.

There comes a time when one must bow out of a thread whose level of discourse has deteriorated to the point where no more intelligent discourse can take place. That time has come for me in this thread.

Vino To reply, add "x" between letters and numbers of e-mail address.

SOMETHING IS INDEED WRONG WITH THE PICTURE. When I see posts in this NG given by people that are in error, I like many others try to correct the post or refer an article or link with the the correct information. In the reference to Icewine (NOT ICE WINE) there seems to be a misconception in the US that much of the production here in Canada is made in the freezer. I know where that misconception comes from however not to offend anyone I won't comment. If the US regulation wants to use the term "partially frozen grapes" so be it. We choose not to. That is why I posted the regulation.When the US becomes the world's largest producer of Icewine than we here will step back and see what we are doing wrong. Some of the North Eastern States are becoming fine producers of Icewine, done the natural way. Many of the vintners have looked to Ontario for assistance. My final question to you b4 I to bow out is, How many bottles of Icewine have you made?