January 31, 2007
After everything else in the vineyard has been harvested -- usually September or October here in the northern hemisphere -- wine makers leave their ice wine grapes on the vine until the first hard freeze -- late November or early December -- and then they pick while the grapes are still frozen.
In some ways, this is the ultimate in "late harvest" wine, because the grapes have to be brought in before they thaw (after that, they're mush), so the harvest is often done in the middle of the night. Once the sun rises and things start to warm up, it's too late. A couple of years ago on a wine tour in Germany, one of the wine makers we visited said they made ice wine every year except 1996, when his alarm didn't go off and he overslept.
Since ice wine grapes hang on the vine for another month or so longer than the regular harvest, they're increasingly susceptible to anything that can go wrong in the vineyard: hail, birds, mold, clumsy tractor drivers, you name it. Risks are high, labor is intense, and yields are tiny. It almost goes without saying that ice wine can be astronomically expensive; upwards of $300 a half-bottle is not unheard of.
Thanks to the El Nino effect and what we understand today to be a general trend toward global warming, this year's ice wine harvest at the Inniskillin Winery in Canada's famous Niagara, Ontario wine region didn't begin until January 16. This is a little scary, but it's hardly a record. The 2000 ice wine vintage wasn't harvested until the middle of March 2001.
Oscar Time For Coppola
In addition to his accomplishments as a filmmaker, Francis Ford Coppola's success as a wine maker is astounding. For the last couple of decades, he has slowly but surely bought back all the old Inglenook lands and reconstituted the original vineyards in Napa. His Rosso and Bianco wines are steady under-$10 favorites, the "Diamond Series" chardonnay, zinfandel, merlot and others are solid $10-$20 values, and the flagship Rubicon stakes out the $100 end of the spectrum nicely.
Now Coppola has expanded into the Sonoma Valley by buying the old Chateau Souverain and launching a new line called Director's Cut in the $20-$30 range. In film making, the director's cut means an edit -- or "cut" -- of a film that represents the director's complete vision. After all he's accomplished and everything he's contributed to the world of wine, Coppola's earned the total right to express his own personal wine vision. The best news is that the wines are delicious but they're also affordable. After all, $20 barely gets two people into the movies these days, but four people can safely share a bottle. Now that's entertainment!
2005 Francis Ford Coppola "Director's Cut" Chardonnay (about $20, available nationally)Slowly but surely, I'm starting to fall in love with chardonnay again, and I don't care who knows it. This wine comes from Russian River Valley, a sub-region of Sonoma that's famous for producing crisp, zippy whites. Thanks to a big dose of barrel fermentation (oak, that is) and something called malolactic fermentation (that's where all those creamy, buttery flavors in chardonnay traditionally come from), the Director's Cut chardonnay is simultaneously bright and clear with a great viscous texture. It is beautifully balanced between citrus and buttery oak, and very impressive. If, like so many wine lovers, you think you're "over" chardonnay, try this one and you'll remember why you fell in love with the grape in the first place. Right now, there's also a very tasty Director's Cut pinot noir and zinfandel available, with a cabernet sauvignon to come.
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