Okanagan wineries expected to produce less ice wine; weather not cold enough for harvest

Ice wine is considered a premium product, one that most wineries don’t produce.

Because it’s weather dependent, not only is making ice wine risky, but it’s also expensive to make.

Miles Prodan is the president and CEO of the B.C. Wine Institute. He says making a bottle of ice wine requires six times the amount of grapes needed for a regular bottle of wine.

“So you have to have a lot of fruit and grapes to go into that. So that’s where the expense is,” said Miles Prodan.

Although ice wine is produced in much smaller quantities than regular table wine, there will be even less of it made this year.

“You have to declare in advance that it’s going to be ice wine, and so people have not registered as much as they have in the past,” Prodan told Global News. “So we know the quantity is going to be down.”

In 2019, 19 B.C. wineries, most of them in the Okanagan, registered to make ice wine. In 2020, that number dropped to just 12.

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According to the B.C. Wine Institute, the pandemic may be partly to blame.

1:17 West Kelowna winery to give behind the scenes ice wine tour

That’s because the dessert wine is typically a big hit among international visitors — who were pretty much absent last year due to travel restrictions, prompting more wineries to skip an ice wine harvest.

“You may choose to harvest those grapes now and get your table wine and forego the ice wine,” Prodan said.

“You’re going to think ‘I’ve got a supply, so I’m not going to hold those grapes for an ice wine harvest. I’m going to make table wine from them.’ So that’s probably why we were seeing some of the declines in registrations.”

The mild winter may also contribute to an even smaller supply.

A cold snap of at least -8 degrees is needed to harvest frozen grapes for ice wine, and those freezing temperatures have yet to arrive.

“The later it gets, the less the crop is going to be,” Prodan said. “So as we start pushing up later into winter, the grapes get smaller and smaller and there’s less and less juice.”

This year’s smaller production of ice wine may result in the product costing consumers more.

“Supply and demand,” Prodan said. “It’s how it works. If there’s less of it, it could be more for sure.”

1:47 Time running out for Okanagan ice wine producers