What You’ll Need

4 bottles of chilled Icewine (look for VQA stamp of approval); 2 whites plus 1 red plus 1 late harvest OR 1 sparkling icewine

4 white wine glasses or Reidel icewine glasses per guest

1 Scorecard/pen per guest (print off scorecards PDF on everythingzoomer.com) Water for palate-cleansing Platter of salty cheeses for post-tasting pairing with white icewine

Platter of pieces of dark chocolate for post-tasting pairing with red icewine

Set-Up and Ambience

Hold the party in a room free of strong aromas so guests can use their nose to explore aromas.

Consider some outdoor activity: don’t worry about the weather. Guests will warm up during the tasting.

A snow-white tablecloth works, as does your prettiest stem- and tableware.

Create a playlist of NYE favourites, perhaps a few tunes from Grapes of Wrath, who hail from the Okanagan,, and April Wine, who originated near Nova Scotia’s vineyards.

Set up a Frostbite Martini. Then celebrate midnight with champagne spiked with a red icewine (3 to 1).

In front of each guest, line up 4 glasses with 1½-ounce of each icewine in the following order: late harvest-white-white-red OR white-white-red-sparkling.

Instruct guests to either cleanse palate with water between tastings or to take a small sip of the next icewine to get the palate used to it.

Take guests through the tasting, spouting every thing you now know about Canada’s liquid gold – or ruby!

Give everyone a chance to jot down notes on their scorecards and compare.

After tasting, invite guests to pair white icewine with cheese and red with dark chocolate.