Ice Wine was my “gateway” drink!
On a date, at a cozy French bistro in a trendy part of Los Angeles in my early 30s, wanting to appear cultured and chic, but daunted by the wine list, I came upon Neige (apple ice wine). I ordered it and fell in love (with the wine, mostly; but with the guy as well, if I’m being honest).
Since then, I’ve always had an affinity for sweet wines: late harvest varietals and ice wine (grape or apple-based), in particular.
According to Wikipedia:
“Ice wine is a type of dessert wine produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. The sugars and other dissolved solids do not freeze, but the water does, allowing for a more concentrated grape juice to develop. The grapes’ must is pressed from the frozen grapes, resulting in a smaller amount of more concentrated, very sweet wine. With ice wines, the freezing happens before the fermentation, not afterwards.”
When a Canadian friend saw my alcohol-related Eating the Chocolate Alphabet project, she offered to find me chocolates made with ice wine; Canada is one of the largest producers of ice wine since the weather consistently gets cold enough there. How could I refuse?!
Love that the quintet of detailed, maple leaf-shaped bonbons are served individually in a little tray inside the shiny (and hard to avoid an accidental selfie while being photographed) outer box.
The outer shell is milk chocolate and in the center there is a small dollop of crumbly ice wine flavored cocoa butter. Overall this confection is too sweet for my taste and I wonder what it might have been like with either white chocolate or dark chocolate as the shell.
Granted, these are not “craft” chocolates, but they do provide a fond nostalgia for time gone by.
Over the years, romance with the guy withered and died, but my affection for the wine has not. On the whole, I can’t complain about that turn of fate, it’s opened a world of opportunities for me 🙂
If you know of another ice wine chocolate that I should try, please leave a comment below!