An almost cloudless sky, the sun will not rise for a few hours: When it is really cold, some winegrowers try to harvest the ice wine. If the ripe berries hang too long, there is a risk of compost.
Würzburg (dpa / lby) - It has to be done quickly, otherwise the fingertips hurt and are stiff: Ice wine harvest is manual work in the vineyard at night when it is frosty. According to the Franconian Winegrowers Association, hardly any winegrowers are counting on crisp cold nights this year before the grapes that have remained on the vine have dried out completely. Franconia's largest winegrowers' association GWF from Kitzingen, for example, planned a dry berry selection and no ice wine.
For the noble sweet ice wine, the healthy grapes have to be frozen in the press. The sweet juice then drips from the winepress. Last year, only a handful of winegrowers succeeded in harvesting ice wine shortly before Christmas.
Ice wines are considered the culmination of a vintage because the aromatic ingredients of the fully ripe berries are concentrated by freezing. They are mainly drunk as an aperitif or with desserts and cheese. A 0.375 liter bottle can cost between 20 and 70 euros, sometimes more.
For years, only a few winegrowers in Franconia have relied on ice wine, mainly because the winters are getting warmer and it often only gets bitterly cold in January or February. If the grapes hang on the vine for too long, they are often ripe for the compost.
The Würzburg Weingut Reiss has been taking the risk of ice wine every year since 1999, even if it wasn't always ice wine, but perhaps a sweet Beerenauslese. Grapes were still hanging in two vineyards on less than half a hectare, protected with nets, as winemaker Christian Reiss explains. "That means that even if there is no ice wine now because of the temperature, these shriveled grapes will fall into the net and continue to dry, so that we might at least still have a Beerenauslese." Without nets, animals could eat the grapes.
Records show that ice wines have been produced in Franconia since 1794. Permafrost on two consecutive days is ideal.
The yeast fungi in the wine barrel hardly manage to ferment a must with such a high sugar content. According to the German Wine Institute, the resulting wine usually has a very high natural residual sugar content of well over 100 grams per liter. At the same time, the alcohol content is relatively low at around 7 percent by volume.
