One would expect icewine to have a long history in winemaking, but it doesn’t. In fact, ice wine has only been around for about 200 years. The prevailing theory of its “birth” centers on a German winemaker who was surprised by an early frost. He decided to press the frozen grapes anyway, but separated them from the rest of his crop so as not to ruin everything. To his surprise, the resulting wine was pure and sweet.

Since then, ice wine has been produced to some degree in every wine-producing country in the Northern Hemisphere, including Austria, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, and others.

The difference between ice wine and other dessert wines is that ice wines display a much clearer fruit and varietal character. This is because other sweet wines are made from grapes affected by botrytis (“noble rot”), or from grapes that have been hung and dried. Because ice wine grapes are healthy at harvest, a fair amount of acidity remains, giving the wine a rootiness that other dessert wines generally have to a much lesser degree.

True ice wine is the one made from grapes that are kept on the vine until the temperature drops below -19.4 Fahrenheit or -7 degrees Celsius. In the US, New Zealand, and a few other regions, winemakers have begun producing simulated ice wine by dumping the grapes into a commercial freezer. These simulated icewine are considered to be of lower quality and will typically sell for half the price of traditionally made icewine.

Both methods employ the same basic idea: A grape is made up mostly of water, and since only water will freeze at these low temperatures, sweet grape nectar can be extracted from the grapes while the frozen water remains trapped in the skins.

Harvesting on the first frosty night of the year is essential, because grapes left on the vine to go through a freeze-thaw-refreeze cycle can take on off-flavors. Winemakers are often nervous come harvest time, as they will have spent night after night repeatedly waking up to check the temperature.

“Keeping harvest workers ready can be a tedious and embarrassing task,” says Franz Heiss, head winemaker at the respected Heiss Winery in Austria. He will often have to wake up a dozen harvest workers for the fifth or sixth time, only to see another night go by without reaching desired temperatures.

The best ice wines are clear and vibrant in their flavors and aromas. The aromatic Scheurebe grape has properties that make it a popular choice for making great ice wine. The impressive 2002 Eiswein from the famous Austrian winery Gsellmann and Gsellmann exemplifies this perfectly.

Traminer is another aromatic varietal that produces great ice wines. Master sweet wine grower Franz Heiss makes an impressive ice wine from this grape, of which the 2001 and 2002 vintages stand out. He has also made ice wine from the red Blaufränkisch grape, and the result is a magical version of pink with exotic berry notes. As he himself explains: “An ice wine made from red grapes is very rare. Freezing the grapes greatly influences the aromas, and this is especially true when the grapes are red.”

In Austria, where wine laws are the strictest in all of Europe, only ice wines created by Mother Nature can bear the proud name. So if Austrian ice wines are to be considered some of the most authentic and true ice wines, it could be argued that an ice wine from Austria’s flagship grape, Grüner Veltliner, is the truest ice wine of all. Manfred Weiss of Weiss Winery in the Burgenland region made a Grüner-only icewine in 1999 and a Grüner and Welschriesling cuvee in 2001. He prefers to use Grüner Veltliner for his icewine because it is resistant to botrytis, so the end result has particularly clean and clear notes.

Finding these great ice wines can be almost as difficult as making them. As the method of production suggests, quantities are very limited, and the quantity exported to the United States further limits availability. Add to that the fact that every year around the holidays most major food and wine publications run a story on ice wine, and what can be found on the shelves of your local retailers sells out fast. . However, there are some online retailers that specialize in these wines: Winemonger.com is one example, with a wide selection of Austrian wines, including several ice wines. Or a simple online search for the name of an icewine producer, like the ones mentioned in this article, will return sources. However, finding a great true ice wine is worth the effort – there’s nothing quite like this spectacular dessert wine specialty.