Ice Wine : Best one & size of the bottle question.

[Clarence Martin]

What is the best Ice Wine ? Got to get one as a gift . Also, since I don't drink Wine , and know nothing about the Metric system, how big is a 375 and 500 ml bottle ?


Thanks,

[Peter Kelly]

My dad, who is a connoisseur of sweet, floral German and Austrian wines really likes Huber Riesling Eiswein. Since you're upstate, there should be a fair number of locally-made ones available though.

750ml is the standard size for a wine bottle so 375ml is 1/2 of that. Desert wines typically come in 500ml-sized ones.

Does the gift have to be ice wine?

[David Bassett]

I was going to reply, "what's the best red wine?", but since you're not a wine drinker that won't make my point. What's "best" really is a matter of taste.

I've had several ice-wines, and other late-harvest desert wines, from Hunt Country Vineyards and thought they were very good. More experienced and sophisticated ice-wine drinkers liked them too. They're in your area, so should have some local distribution. (I got them through a mail order deal.) The Niagara region is, I understand, even more famous for ice-wine and they are not too much further, so you should have a much better selection than we do out here.

Sorry, I'm not really much help.

[Dave Anderson NH]

The ice wines from Casa Larga in Fairport NY are fantastic and have won many awards. Unfortunately for my pocket book they also have a Chardonnay I like and buy by the case, their oak aged CLV Chardonnay is a blend made from Hungarian, French and domestic grapes. Every time SWMBO and I drive to Fairport to visit my Dad I leave the winery with my car trunk heavier and my wallet lighter.

[Peter Kelly]

Every time SWMBO and I drive to Fairport to visit my Dad I leave the winery with my car trunk heavier and my wallet lighter.

Funny, every time leave NH to head back to NYC, I'm in the same position. Spirits prices there are excellent.

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

From mine experience all Ice wine coming in 375 or even 250 cc bottles. Price usually high, but wine is good, at least what my wife said.
I prefer scotch - Oban or Yamazaki.

Ed.

[Jerome Stanek]

My wife wines about ice on the roads all winter long

[Dan Hintz]

Can't say I've ever seen a 500mL bottle of icewine, only the 375mL size... and I love me some sweet /dessert wines. Tastes vary, though, so what is good to me may be rubbish to you. Inniskillin, for example, is a well-known brand from Ontario... but it's too harsh for my tastebuds

[Ralph Okonieski]

Not all ice wines are created equal IMHO. As with other wines, depends on your individual tastes.

My wife and I found the ice wines from Niagara-on-the-lake to be like "syrup", thick and extremely sweet. Several wineries recommended serving on ice cream. Not saying that is bad, just not to our tastes.

Ice wine from the Finger Lakes region and northeast Ohio was more like very sweet wine. Not as viscous as the Canadian versions. I believe the processes between the different regions are different as well.

All three regions produce excellent wines. Ice wines are just not our favorites, but are nice to have on hand for special occasions.

All three regions offer tastings. That is part of the enjoyment of visiting wine areas.

[Alan Hick]

What is the best Ice Wine ? Got to get one as a gift . Also, since I don't drink Wine , and know nothing about the Metric system, how big is a 375 and 500 ml bottle ?


Thanks,

What's the best Ice Wine? There is no consensus answer for that question. It's like asking what's the best sports car? You have to select the maker, the year, the model, and, if it came with different engine or trans options, which one? For wine of any kind you need to be able to pick a region, a preferred grape variety, and a year.

How big is a 375ml bottle? They typically are as tall as, if not a few cm taller than a regular wine bottle, but they are thin, straight cylinders, rather than pear-shaped. Except for when they're not. Some eisweins are in 375ml bottles that just look like miniature pear-shaped wine bottles.

Does the gift have to be Ice Wine? Or can it just be a dessert wine? And, if it has to be Ice Wine, does it have to be "Ice Wine", or can it be "Eiswein"?

If you're looking for "the best", I'm assuming you're looking for something a wine drinker would recognize and appreciate. Kind of like, needing to give a bordeaux as a gift, and buying a bottle of Chateau Petrus.

For Ice Wines, the names you were given--Inniskillin and Casa Larga--are reliably good, and readily available. For Eiswein, Huber is a good producer. Other Austrian producers that make a good range of Eisweins that are available here in the states are Kracher and Nigl. Keep in mind that producers have various "grades", like maple syrup. The "better" (as in more expensive) they are, the deeper the color and the sweeter they get, as a rule.

If you want to get a dessert wine, with a name that will be recognized by an oenophile, get a sauternes by Chateau d'Yquem. You can get it in a 375 bottle, and it will be instantly recognizable by anyone who knows anything about wine.

Otherwise, good alternatives in the dessert wine category are the dessert wines of the Alsace region, Beerenausleses (often referred to as BA's) or Trockenbeerenausleses (often referred to as TBA's). The BA's and TBA's tend to come in the same kind of bottles as Eisweins, and are available from the same producers. The Alsatians are in tall, more slender pear shaped bottles and typically have labels that look like stained glass windows.

For something "good" expect to pay anywhere from 50 to 250 dollars.