Peller Estates Ice Wine

Peller Estates Ice Wine comes to us from Peller Estates in Niagra-On-The-Lake, Ontario, Canada.

A couple close friends of mine picked this bottle up on the border during their vacation visit to Niagra Falls.

Having never tried an ice wine before, I was pleased when they told me about their find and asked me to come over and do a wine review for it.

The process of how this particular ice wine was created is quite interesting.  Grapes for this wine are left to freeze on the vine.  They’re then picked in the middle of winter by hand at night after several freeze and thaw cycles have occurred.  The temperature at the time of picking has to be at least -10 degrees Celsius.

The frozen grapes are then immediately pressed and each grape yields just one drop of juice to be made into this delicate dessert wine.

Since the yield is so low, ice wine is relatively expensive and comes in small bottles.  This wine came in a 200ml bottle.

Peller Estates Ice Wine Review

After a lovely Chicken Francais dinner, we settled in and tasted the 2013 vintage of this oak aged ice wine.

Appearance

In the glass, this wine is similar in color to light pine sap.  Some light does shine through and its legs are thick and slow to fall.

Aroma

The wine’s aroma is very unique.

It reminded us of the aroma that apples give off when they’ve fallen off the tree and have sat on the ground for awhile.  Not rotten, but more like apple cider.

There was also a crisper, tart green grape aroma that was noticed.  One person also suggested there was a bit of a paint thinner smell in there too.

Peller Estates Ice Wine alcohol content 11.0% by volume, per the bottle.

Taste

The apple cider aroma carried through to the taste.  Most noticeable, however, was the wine’s sweetness.  This is a very sweet dessert wine.

Mouthfeel

Peller Estates Ice Wine is silky smooth with a rich mouth coating feel to it.

Finish

The wine’s finish is very long and carried by the everlasting sweetness.

Overall Opinion

Overall, two of the three of us really liked this wine.  For the other, the sweetness was a bit much and he compared it to a white port wine.

We decided that this wine is simple, but is excellent in its delicate simplicity.

Peller Estates Ice Wine price $25.00US.

Serve chilled.

Suggested Food Pairing

This wine could easily stand on its own as your dessert course.

However, we paired this wine with a Bacardi Black Rum and Espresso Tiramisu with chocolate shavings on top.

We thought it went great with this wine!