Local wineries anxiously await cold temps for icewine harvest

Wineries along Naramata Bench are keeping one anxious eye on the mercury and the other on their vines, hoping for a temperature drop that will be cold enough to harvest their temperamental icewine grapes.

"This is a very stressful time right now," said Val Tait, general manager and winemaker at Bench 1775. "We're waiting for temperatures to drop to -8 C, that's the trigger point to start."

She says it's a tricky time of year for all icewine makers, because the grapes are deteriorating every day they stay on the vines, inconsistently frozen. As soon as temperatures hit that -8 C spot and stay there, it's all hands on deck to harvest. 

"We have to very quickly take it to the winery and press it while it's still frozen so we can finally get icewine juice," she explained. 

Tait is eager to get started, tasting her grapes daily and she's delighted with what she's finding. 

"The flavour right now is so beautiful, they are quite tasty. They have been dehydrating because it's been freezing and thawing over time, the grapes have started to raisin up and they are very concentrated in flavour," Tait said. 

They are extremely sweet, but not sweet enough for icewine — that final concentration of the sugars only comes when they fully freeze. 

"When the grapes become frozen, the water that's inside the grapes actually freezes like a little block of ice, and when we press it, all we get is the juice with all the sugar and the acid," she explained. 

The finicky process is what she calls "a labour of love." Time, energy and hard work go into very little yield, so you really need the passion. 

"Because you can imagine, people are out here, they are going to be picking two or three in the morning, and they are harvesting the fruit in unbelievably cold conditions, it's probably going to be windy," Tait said. "And two or three clusters [of grapes] makes one small glass of wine."

They consider themselves lucky to get 350 litres of juice per every metric tonne of fruit. The labour-intensive, extremely precise process is what makes icewines pricier, and coveted as a specialty product, Tati says. 

And Tait knows Canada has a reputation around the world as a top-quality producer of icewine — which means there's more pressure to live up to. 

But there is good news in the forecast, with temperatures expected to plummet heading into the weekend.

When Tait spoke to Castanet Thursday afternoon, she was hopeful it could happen overnight or, if not, Friday. She and her team are on standby ready to go any night that they are able to harvest. 

"We want to be able to pick icewine as quickly as possible!" 

Other wineries along the Bench that typically produce icewine include Hillside Winery and Red Rooster Winery.