WTN: 2001 Zlati Grich Estate Laszki Rizling Ice Wine, Slovenia
Ice wine is something that shouldn't exist. The description alone—wine made from the juice of frozen grapes—suggests a topsy-turvy world.
Look at the pictures. Pickers tromp through snowy vineyards at dawn in late December. They are swaddled in a closet's worth of clothes, not only to keep themselves warm but to keep the grapes cold. In Germany, pickers must bring in the grapes for ice wine before the temperature climbs above -7°C (19°F). This is not a job for the Polish contract workers who work the normal harvest, but for friends and family who view the snow-covered grapes as a miracle bestowed by the wave of an ice fairy's wand.
Peer into a glass of ice wine, and you understand a truth about humanity: We will not be swayed from the path of madness. This liquid peek into our own soul motivated Kitchen Chick to choose ice wines as a theme for this edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, the monthly virtual tasting group.
Germany's frigid temperatures and high-acid Riesling grapes make the country the king of the world's ice wine regions, but a court of knights and dukes eye the throne: Austria, Germany's southern neighbor and cultural mirror; Canada, unusual for its predictable annual ice wine harvest; Washington, the some time home of stunning ice wines; Slovenia.
Wait. Slovenia? Yes, Slovenia. The Eastern European nation now shares a border with Austria's Styria region, but it used to be part of the sprawling Austrio-Hungarian Empire before it became part of Yugoslavia and then split off to its own destiny. Inevitably Germanic wine making habits sifted through the former Habsburg holdings.
But not German grapes. Noble Riesling doesn't fare well this far south, so Slovenia has filled its vineyards with Laszki Rizling, which is the same grape as Austria's Wälshriesling. No matter the guise it wears, this rustic grape shares little more than phonetics with the more famous variety.
But it can produce a decent ice wine in its own right, as demonstrated by Zlati Gric's slender half-bottle. Germany need not worry about a new dawn of Slovenian Laski Rizling ice wine domination, but this bottle is, at $50 from Blue Danube, one-fourth the cost of an elegant German example. I wouldn't call it complex—the straightforward aroma encompasses resin, minerals and oats, while the mellow acidity serves as a soft backdrop to a flavor that starts as menthol and ends on quiet apple notes. But I would say it's a good way to explore ice wine's compelling mix of sugar and acidity without mortgaging your home, and I'd happily drink it alongside an apple galette.
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