Ruling clarifies ice wine

The hard freeze in early November was just what Sayre Fulkerson was hoping for.

Sayre, owner of Fulkerson's Winery in Dundee, had been cluster-thinning his Vidal grapes, hoping that the crop would sufficiently mature before frost killed the leaves and stopped the ripening process.

On the night of Nov. 8, the temperature plunged. The cold was perfect for Sayre and his crew to harvest grapes frozen on the vine before the sun came up. It was cold the next night as well and the remaining frozen Vidal grapes were picked before dawn.

"We were able to machine-harvest," Sayre said. "It made it quite expeditious."

They picked more than four tons of frozen grapes. The temperature of the grapes after being hand-loaded into the press was 18 degrees. At that temperature, the water in the grapes was frozen, and the fruit yielded a juice with concentrated flavor and a higher sugar level.

The grapes, that had measured 19 to 20 brix (a degree of sweetness) while on the vine, yielded juice at 38 brix after pressing.

Adhering to the process of harvesting grapes frozen on the vine will allow Sayre to use the term "ice wine" when he submits a label to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau for approval.

Sayre, like several other area winemakers, has made award-winning ice wines in the past by another means: The grapes were picked, then placed in a freezer to accomplish what would have happened on the vine if Mother Nature had brought a hard freeze.

Winemakers cannot always afford that luxury of waiting. "You can't make ice wine with a partial freeze," Sayre said. "There is tissue damage following a partial freeze, and the fruit will start to brown and deteriorate. We seldom get a hard freeze as the first freeze event.

"I think it (this year's ice wine) will be indistinguishable from the freezer process," he added.

The process of freezing grapes following harvest, but before pressing, is called cryoextraction. The tax and trade board issued a statement in October 2002 that a ruling to the effect of "wine made from grapes frozen after harvest may not be labeled with the term 'ice wine,' or any variation thereof," would soon be forthcoming.

AFT Rul. 2002-7 turned out to be not a new rule limiting labeling but rather an amplification of rules dating back to 1978 regarding the use of the term ice wine. Under the classification of prohibited practices, it added, "if the wine is labeled to suggest that it was made from frozen grapes, the label must be qualified to show that the grapes were frozen post-harvest."

The ruling concludes with, " 'Ice wine,' or a similar term, would mislead consumers if used on wine made with methods such as freezing grapes after harvest, designed to simulate these properties and characteristics."

We will have to wait to see how Sayre's frozen-on-the-vine Vidal ice wine compares with his previous wines that won awards using cryoextraction.

Jeff Richards' wine column appears Saturdays. For comments or questions, he can be reached at 607/271-8279 or 800/836-8970, ext. 279, or e-mail: thewineguy