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A unique ice wine will be one of the highlights at this year’s New York Ice Wine & Culinary Festival. The annual festival is hosted by Casa Larga Vineyards.
While collecting grapes for wine production is traditionally associated with the fall, Andrea O’Neill, director of marketing at Casa Larga, calls the winter “a second harvest.”
“Everybody likes to complain about how cold it is in Upstate New York, but in one sense, it’s kind of a gift because there are only a few places in the world that can make ice wine,” she says. “So we decided, let’s celebrate our ice wine harvest the same way we celebrate our regular harvest.”
The wine is prepared by picking frozen grapes, which increases the sugar content in them, and pressing them while still frozen. The traditional production requires a climate cold enough that ice is not lost in the process, explains O’Neill.
“If we pick grapes in the fall, it might be at 21, 22 Brix,” she says, referring to a measurement for sugar content. “Ice wine grapes are picked at around 46, which gives you an idea of the sweetness.
“When they’re picking them and throwing them in the basket, it literally sounds like someone is throwing marbles in the basket, that’s how hard they are,” adds O’Neill. “When the press presses the grapes, it pushes out this beautiful, rich, sweet juice that is thicker than we use for other still wines.”
That thickness and sugar content make the ice wine more of a dessert spirit than a dinner wine. O’Neill describes the ice wine taste as “full, velvety”; it is sweet on the palate and pairs well with sharp cheeses.
The festival will feature ice wine tastings, along with ice wine-infused small plates, live entertainment, winery tours, wagon rides, and vendors with handcrafted jewelry, maple syrups, candles, and more. In addition, Casa Larga’s “Love Shack Ice Lounge” will feature the 2025 Ice Wine fest cocktail, the Glasier Glow, as well as s mocktail, the Pink Sunset, along with a disco theme.
Beside Casa Larga, spirits from Black Button, 1836, and Iron Smoke distilleries will be available along with ciders from Blue Barn Cidery.
“When it started in 1995, it was just tastings in the wine shop. We didn’t have the food vendors or the other wineries involved,” says O’Neill. “So, it’s changed a lot over the years, based on expansion and also, most recently, COVID. But we’ve kept celebrating it.”
The festival will be held Saturday, but O’Neill notes ice wine will be available throughout the weekend.
Tickets for the festival are $80 per person or $150 for two, and include access to tastings, food samples, and all festival activities. Ticketed entry times are 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.
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