Head of the Kracher family Gerhard Kracher in the vineyard. Kracher Wines
You can “make hay while the sun shines”, but not ice wine.
Indeed, we had all better grab our share of Austria’s ice wine while we can. Because, according to leading Burgenland ice wine producer Kracher, climate change is making it increasingly difficult to harvest frozen grapes.
Kracher said the 2023 vintage produced just 4,000 half-bottles. “It is uncertain when the next opportunity to produce ice wine will come.”
Ice wine—whether in Germany, Austria or Canada’s Niagara Peninsula—is made by harvesting frozen grapes that are so cold that they remain frozen until they have been transported to the cellar and pressed. The temperature must be such that the water inside each grape remains in the form of an ice-block, while the sweet juice trickles out of the press and goes off to the fermenting tank.
The science is simple: water freezes at a higher temperature than grapejuice, because sugars lower the freezing-point of liquids.
Kracher is a family firm that makes an eye-widening array of great sweet wines near Burgenland’s Neusiedlersee, from grape varieties as diverse as chardonnay, savagnin, graševina/welschriesling, traminer, muscat ottonel, sämling 88, and scheurebe.
In a recent news flash, Kracher said:
“In Austria, ice wine must freeze naturally on the vine at a temperature of at least -7°C. While the water in the grapes freezes, the sugar remains as a concentrated liquid, and the grapes for the 2023 vintage were harvested on 4 December in freezing temperatures at 4 am in
This Article was originally published on The Real Review
