Celebrating the Wine of Winter

Icewine may be Nature's way of compensating Canadians for the annual endurance of winter. This country's ability to make icewine every year has helped focus our attention on dessert, and on long winter nights around a warm table.

But one of the toughest challenges chefs face is pairing icewine with dessert.

This super-sweet and brightly acidic after-dinner drink - this rich and unctuous essence of the grape - defies many foods with its assertive character. Like a French sauternes or a German beerenauslese, icewine may often be best appreciated when served with something savoury like foie gras or Gorgonzola cheese.

Many sommeliers suggest serving icewine alone, chilled and poured as the dessert course, or alongside simple fruit desserts like poached pears or peaches, fruit tarts and crème brûlée. But creative Canadian chefs are always searching for new ways to use the intense flavour of icewine with their desserts.

At Niagara's Hillebrand Estates, pastry chef Catherine O'Donnell makes a spiced apple butter with icewine, nutmeg and cinnamon and spoons it into tiny tart shells. Inniskillin chef Izabela Kalabis poaches fresh figs in icewine and serves them with an icewine sabayon and a few crisp hazelnut cookies.

But Thomas Haas, arguably Canada's top pastry chef, says he's reluctant to include icewine as an ingredient in his desserts.

"I find it such a delicate wine that I don't believe in cooking with it," says Haas, executive pastry chef for Senses in Toronto and Vancouver, and Vancouver's Diva at the Met. "I would never reduce it or bake with it - I feel you are destroying the product."

The most manipulation he recommends is setting the wine with a touch of gelatin - "just to change the texture" - to create glistening cubes to scatter across a plate.

Haas says he often recommends that diners "have the icewine, then have the dessert." But if he's serving dessert with icewine, it must be delicate and fruity - perhaps a very ripe peach, lightly poached and skinned, with a touch of fresh raspberry puree and a tiny almond cookie.

"It has to be something very light and with the same notes to complement the wine," he says. "Peaches or apricots, kept as natural as you keep the icewine. As soon as you make a dessert too complex or rich, you lose the wine."

Pastry chef Anna Olson, host of the Food Network television show Sugar, agrees. "My choice would be to cook with the late harvest wine and pour the icewine alongside."

While Olson says she has used icewine to flavour a simple sabayon or to soak dried fruits for a holiday fruitcake, the best match is often the simplest.

"I would stick to the fruit category - apples, pears, apricots, peaches - to bring out the layers in the wine," she says.

"Something as simple as poached fruit, with a very thin layer of pastry and a hint of cream, nothing too heavy."

"Ultimately, seared foie gras is the best match with icewine."

Chef Michael Allemeier, of Mission Hill Family Estate winery, says icewine marries well with cheese.

"I like to pair the icewine with the cheese course at the end of a meal," he says. "It's far better to throw something salty and rich at it - icewine is so sweet and complex and elaborate on its own."

When choosing a dessert to serve with icewine, think of its inherent flavours - often intense apricot, tropical fruit and honey. The food should never be sweeter than the wine. Chocolate and icewine (two top tastes on their own) sadly don't usually make the best bedfellows.

Thomas Haas feels the bitterness of chocolate overpowers icewine and those who use icewine in truffles are only doing it for the marketing cachet.

"People use ten per cent icewine and dilute it with other wine - nobody can taste it anyway," he says.

But every icewine is different. Vidal may have more spicy peach chutney aromas, while gewürtztraminer is more floral, and riesling may offer fresh apricot and tropical fruit flavours, with a citrusy, marmalade finish. There are now icewines being made with red grapes like cabernet franc and merlot, with raspberry and strawberry fruit flavours and more structure.

Icewine is such a precious commodity that it may seem insane to pour it into the pot. But if you must, think about using a touch of the icewine you intend to serve to flavour a frothy sabayon to bridge the flavours on the plate. Spoon a little icewine, straight up, over a dish of poached pears or a fruit salad of peaches, pineapple, apricots and raspberries. Or simply freeze your favourite icewine in a shallow pan, then scoop the frozen sorbet into pretty dessert dishes and garnish with frozen grapes.

It's a simple way to celebrate with the wine of winter.

Cinda Chavich is an award-winning wine, food, and travel wordsmith. Her work has appeared in major newspapers and magazines across North America. She's the author of several cookbooks, including High Plains, The Girl Can't Cook and The Guy Can't Cook. Her website is www.tastereport.com
This article originally appeared in the Winter 2005 issue of Wine Access.