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Unprecedented hailstorms and heat warnings within the same week bring up the subject of wine and ice. Putting ice in a glass of wine is a no-no by all accounts, though last summer I was bemused in Paris when our hosts, offspring of the famed champagne-producing Taittinger family, graciously plopped ice cubes into a stunning Comte Cuvee (Ponti Wines, $1,398).

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Rose wines have been known to get cosy with ice cubes. According to a recently released report to Onivins, the national French wine board, rose sales in France increased 2.4 per cent by volume last spring, while red wine sales diminished. In accounting for rose's surge of popularity, report author Christian Melani said, 'You can put some ice in your [rose] wine, and no one will call you a heretic, even if it is a very high quality rose.'

Heretics aside, ice cubes seem to be universally acceptable only in that delightful Spanish concoction, sangria. There are as many recipes for sangria as there are for XO sauce, but the punch is traditionally made from low-quality red wine enlivened by the addition of oranges and ice. No one knows for sure how this tradition began, but one can speculate that orange slices provide refreshing acidity to the plonk and ice cubes tone down its aromatic deficiencies. An old trick by restaurateurs is to chill cut-rate wine to mask its poor quality.

Wine and ice are at their synergistic best when it comes to a speciality wine, aptly named 'ice wine'. Ice wine is lusciously sweet and produced from grapes left hanging on the vine into December or January. When winter temperatures dip below minus-10 degrees Celsius, numb-fingered harvesters (right)pick the frozen grapes, which are then rushed to the cellar for pressing before they melt.

As any ski enthusiast knows, salt magically clears snowy surfaces by lowering the freezing point. Sugar has the same effect, though imagine the ensuing insect rave if transport departments sprinkled demerara sugar on the footpaths. Because a grape's sugary liquid is the last to freeze (or first to melt), when winemakers press the grapes only the sweetest juice comes out, leaving the water-laden icy bits behind. The fermentation continues for months. Yeasts find it difficult to exert themselves in such a decadent environment, so before converting all the juice's sugars to alcohol, they take a nap. The result is an unctuously sweet wine with modest alcohol and intensely concentrated flavour.

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It is no surprise that ice wine is a speciality of the world's coolest wine regions, such as Germany. But Ontario, Canada, is the uncontested ice queen. The Niagara Peninsula, a small strip of land nestled between two lakes and a river, consistently produces the finest ice wine in the world and Inniskillin (City'super, $720) is its finest producer. This rich nectar, made from the Vidal grape, is one of the world's great wines. It can be enjoyed as an aperitif or with dessert and should be served chilled - but never over ice. debrameiburg@aol.com
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