Wine of week: Kaapzicht Ice 2009

Who says you can't make wine from grapes frozen on the vine in sunny South Africa? Joanne Gibson puts a Capetonian icewine to the taste test

One of the most remarkable vineyard tours of my career was through the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, Canada. It was late November and the temperature had plummeted to -8°C overnight. However, the vineyards were not deserted, as one might expect - especially hours before sunrise. They were bustling with people joyfully battling lack of sleep and frostbite to pick grapes that had deliberately been left on the vines to shrivel and, hopefully, freeze.

When frozen grapes are pressed, most of the moisture stays behind as ice, yielding only a minuscule amount of juice - an extract, really - that is extremely rich in sugars, acids and flavours. The resulting wine is called eiswein in Germany, where the style originated over two centuries ago, and icewine in Canada, today the world's largest producer, thanks to its reliably frigid winters.

Suffice to say that we cannot make wine from grapes frozen on the vine in sunny South Africa. But that didn't stop the Steytlers of Kaapzicht in Stellenbosch from experimenting with the technique in 2009, when they made their maiden vintage of Ice from a blend of 50% riesling, 25% chenin blanc and 25% hanepoot.

"Purists will say it's not a true icewine," says winemaker Danie Steytler, explaining that the grapes were hand-harvested in late summer at up to 30°C. "But it's nothing a cold container set at -20°C can't sort out - and it's more pleasant than picking grapes in the snow at 4am!"

A tingling acidity cuts through intensely sweet flavours of dried peaches and apricots as well as vanilla, thanks to the wine fermenting and then maturing in barrel for 18 months. Ice 2009 is not certified because the SA wine authorities refuse to recognise the style, but it's utterly delicious and available from the cellar for R160 a bottle.