CRAFT by Under My Host® Issue No. 15 Classics | Page 88

ice-winemaking method, but with a few piv-
otal twists.
In mid fall, we harvest our pinot noir and pi-
not gris grapes at optimal maturity, waiting
for the acids to be in perfect balance with
the sugars. This is differentiated from tra-
ditional ice wines and many dessert wines
which are considered to be “late harvest”
allowing grapes to continue ripening past
maturity while building up more sugars in
the pulp. The reason for our non-late harvest
is that we value acidity and phenolic from
the juice, skins, seeds, and stems and since
these elements all begin to deplete in wine
grapes as they hang past ripening, harvest-
ing at optimal ripeness is key. These ele-
ments balance out the sweetness to come
later in the winemaking process.
Next we haul the grapes to a freezer where
temperatures drop to 0 0 F. The reason for
this is to concentrate the sugars in the melt-
ing but in addition the freezing actually
causes some of the cell walls of the seeds,
skins, and stems to break down which re-
leases strong and even astringent flavors
into the juice upon pressing. We depend on
these strong phenolics to add to the overall
richness and complexity of the wine.
Once frozen, the grapes are removed from
the freezer and placed into the press for a
week long pressing cycle where the grapes
are rolled every two hours. This process
pulverizes the skins, stems, and seeds and
further extracts incredibly concentrated
flavors. The first drops that melt out of the
press are a low melting point sugar, acid,
and phenolic rich solution and the higher
melting point water remains frozen in the
press. The week-long pressing result is two
batches of grape juice: one that is highly
concentrated and another that is highly di-