It’s a gamble, but in 2011/2012 it paid off. On January 3, 2012 the cellar and tasting room crew at Bel Lago was able to harvest 1.5 Tons of Pinot Grigio Ice Wine Grapes. The magical morning started off with temperatures around 15 degrees (<1 with the wind chill), as the wind died down, the sun came out and the lake glistened. Freezing the tiny berries consolidates the sugars to more that 40 brix, pressing it while still frozen defines it as Ice Wine.
Bel Lago is one of the few wineries picking the Pinot Grigio grape for Ice Wine, versus Riesling. Pinot Grigio, slightly botrisized, tastes of baked pear, mango, raisin, honey, caramel, brown sugar and figs, making it an excellent grape for the production of Ice Wine. The juice will slowly warm up and ferment into a decedent desert wine over the next few weeks. We hope to be able to bottle around 60 cases in late fall of 2012.
