Festival celebrates Niagara’s icewines
With an early start to an abundant harvest, Niagara’s vintners have a lot to celebrate this season.
And the party won’t stop for two weeks once the 23rd annual Niagara Icewine Festival is underway.
“It’s starting on Friday night with the big gala, the official kickoff,” said Grape Growers of Ontario chief executive officer Debbie Zimmerman. “And then really it’s two weeks of events.”
She said the icewine grape harvest began in December, weeks ahead of schedule, and the harvest is continuing.
“We’re still picking icewine grapes,” Zimmerman said. “It’s been a phenomenal year. We had a great harvest. A large crop.”
Almost immediately after bringing in the frozen grapes, she said, vintners started the process of transforming the fruit into the sweet beverage.
“The farmers have not had a break. It’s been constant, and it’s the same with the wineries and the growers. It has just been a huge monumental effort to start harvesting early and not ending, really, until January,” she said.
“The reds are going to be brilliant because the quality this year was phenomenal. We’re very lucky. We got through all these things and didn’t have a problem.”
Although it’ll be a few years before the wine being produced today is ready to drink, Zimmerman said there are plenty of vintages from 35 participating wineries to enjoy during icewine festival events.
For Zimmerman, one of the many highlights of the festival is admiring outdoor ice sculptures while enjoying a glass of icewine at the Twenty Valley Wine and Culinary Village.
“They do all sorts of things and
we’re hoping the weather is going to co-operate,” she said.
More information about the festival is available at niagarawinefestival.com. abenner@postmedia.com twitter.com/abenner1