The temperature drops below freezing even by 10-12 degrees. The sky is clear and the moon, together with the snow, are the only ones to illuminate the landscape at least until it begins to dawn. In the silence of the ice-covered vineyards, the harvest begins. The harvest every night must be completed by 7 am, and then proceed with the pressing of the grapes. Slowly so as not to heat them.
Thus began the magical production process of Ice Wines, wines produced from frozen grapes.
The most accredited hypothesis of the origin of ice wines leads to 1794 in Germany, when the harsh winter forced the winemakers of Wurzburg in the Bavarian area to harvest frozen grapes, to avoid losing much of their income. The result was unexpectedly surprising, so much so that it gave way to a special vinification which continued in the following years. Others date the birth of the Eiswein in 1829, in the district of Dromersheim in southwestern Germany. But the circumstances of chance were practically the same. Today the most active nations in the production of ice wines are Canada, Austria and Germany. Also in Italy there are examples produced in Valle d’Aosta, Trentino Alto Adige, very cold regions, and also in Emilia Romagna. But the first to try his hand at the production of this niche wine was Natale Simonetta, a far-sighted Piedmontese winemaker, with his Cascina Baricchi di Neviglie in the province of Cuneo.
It all began in 1995, after an experience in Austria in Alois Kracher’s company that lasted about ten days, in which Simonetta participates in the harvest between the end of November and the beginning of December. “There they produced Ice Wines. It was a kind of study trip and when I returned I started working on my version “, says the producer, now 51 years old and who runs the company created in 1989 by his father, originally from Varese, but moved to Piedmont driven by passion for Barbaresco. “I have always found Muscat to be one of the most important white grape varieties in the world. And so I chose these grapes to start experimenting “. The first bottle arrives in 1999. It is called Solenne, a noble essence of ice wine with the name that encompasses the concept of sun and moon. “Because of its richness, it looked like a wine from the south, it was hardly thought of as a wine of the night. Of the cold ”, he clarifies. The harvest begins around 3 in the morning, when the temperature drops between minus 5 and minus 12 degrees. The completely frozen grapes are harvested slowly and then brought to an outside press by 7 am. Also frozen. “The press – explains the producer – breaks the ice capsules that form inside the berries. With the cold that comes from the outside, the water contained freezes and pushes all its substances into the pulp: sugars, aromas, acids and mineral substances. When these ice crystals are broken with the press, a dense nectar comes out. These buckets obtained are filtered by gravity in a bag which gives us a very dense, aromatic, very sweet superconcentrate ”. The next evening we start again, “after having sterilized all the machinery, because mold or botrytis often form on the berries, and only if the sky is clear”. The must is then placed in steel and racked in spring to begin the refinement. “I have always made a blend of wood and steel depending on how the season goes and what must we get from”.
Natale Simonetta’s foresight goes further. In 2000, in the midst of the expansion of still sweet wines, the producer, who had already found himself five years ahead of his colleagues, decided to turn around, combining Ice Wines with sparkling wines. “Being far-sighted does not mean finding a commercial ploy to please the market, but looking inside and finding what you really graphics”. Firm supporter of Muscat grapes as a base for excellent quality wines and not for industrial products, sometimes lacking, and with a training experience behind him in the Champagne area, he puts aside the production of Solenne and begins to make sparkling wine. “Ice Wine was a high-sounding concept, which distracted attention from the grapes. I wanted to enhance our main grape – he continues -. I said to myself, when you uncork a bottle of Moscato sparkling wine it is always a moment of celebration. A birthday, Christmas, Easter. So I thought of enriching the quality of Moscato with Ice Wines “.
In 2010 Natale produced the first bottle of Regina di Felicità dedicated to his mother Ermide, which also appears on the label. A niche production of 10-13 thousand bottles, sold all over the world. “It is a 70% sweet sparkling wine made of Ice Wine – he specifies -. A cuvée of three different vintages and 30 percent of fresh must from the vintage. The next one that will be released will be a cuvée of the vintages 2010, 2011 and 2013 and the must of 2019 “. If the very first experiments were with the classic method, the winemaker soon decided on a Charmat method “very long – he says -. This wine makes about 20-22 months in contact with its yeasts, we reach 5 and a half atmospheres in an autoclave which is cooled down to minus 4 degrees. The yeasts are suspended every week. Precipitating, they break, give a natural antioxidant and allow the many aromas, which the Muscat contains, to develop. I use the same technique as the classic method, only, instead of in the bottle, I referment with the long Charmat method. It is a sparkling wine that has 150-170 grams of residual sugar, but with an acidity of 10 percent. It is a balanced wine, where perfumes and aromas develop ranging from chamomile, apricot, peaches in syrup to mango, passion fruit to honey, star anise “.
