2021 Gold Vidal Icewine

Sweet wine sold in tall, thin half-bottles. Vidal is a 1930s crossing of Trebbiano/Ugni Blanc with Rayon d’Or, originally designed for Cognac but ideal for Canadian icewine! Winter-hardy vines and no foxy taste in the wine. Inniskillin, established 1979, is the world’s largest produce of icewine (although Mongolians are coming up on the outside). Legally they could pick the grapes when temperatures fall to -8 °C but they wait till –10°. The legal minimum RS is 18 g/l but they aim for 22–28 g/l. Very sweet but very fresh and crystalline even if not that complex. Best not aged too long. (JR)