“I wish to go to Festival! I wish!” – Into the Woods
(ironically, one of my least favorite musicals)
And thanks to all of the facebook votes we received from our awesome family and friends for our ice wine cocktail creation, the Pear Weather Friend, we were able to go to the NY State Ice Wine & Culinary Festival at Casa Larga Vineyards this past Saturday with the tickets we won! THANK YOU for sending votes and luck our way – you sure know how to share the love on Valentine’s Day!
I enjoyed two seminars: Ice Wine Rules (what makes a true ice wine “the nectar of the gods” and how to spot the phonies) and Sipping with Sweet & Savory (pairing food and wine), both of which were hosted by great and amusing speakers and included samplings of tasty desserts, my favorite Casa Larga ice wine (which won the Best Ice Wine in the World award), and a sampling of faux ice wines – to see if we could tell the difference between the real deal and the fakes. In the Ice Wine Rules seminar I learned that true ice wine (which is made from grapes frozen on the vine at between -7 and -14 degrees Celsius for several weeks and typically picked in the middle of the night, are pressed far more gently and slowly than normal grapes, often only producing 2-3 drops of wine per grape with a residual sugar percentage of between 33-56%) will be clearer and brighter in color, will be thicker almost like a syrup or nectar and will slide around the glass much more slowly, and will smell of caramelized sugar with a sweet scent that lingers. Canada, Germany and the United States top the list of true ice wine producers while China and Moldova top the list for counterfeit ice wine production. Of the over 300 wineries in upstate NY, many of which are in the Finger Lakes wine region in Rochester’s backyard, only 22 wineries produce real ice wine.
It sounds simple, but in the Sipping with Sweet & Savory seminar I learned that pairing a sweet wine with a sweet dessert or a dry tart wine with a heavier or spicy dish or a bitter chocolate often works best because sweet and sweet will neutralize each other just like bitter and bitter will, so you won’t be overwhelmed by any one flavor (as I would have previously expected). We experimented by pairing a sweet vanilla bean custard with caramelized pineapple with a dry chardonnay and then with ice wine. The chardonnay has vanilla and citrus notes, which many people originally thought would pair well with the custard, but the sweetness of the ice wine balanced the sweetness of the dessert really nicely. We did the same with a chocolate cookie that had a kick of cayenne with it. It tasted much better with the tart red than with a sweet white. Also, I could have eaten that custard all day.
Following the seminars I attended, Meg and I worked our way around the room sampling ice wines and regular wines from ten different wineries, as well as a variety of gourmet cuisines infused with NY State Ice Wine.
From top left: radicchio and arugula salad with toasted almonds and raspberry ice wine vinaigrette, pulled pork sliders with mango chipotle ice wine glaze, farfalle with pancetta, leeks and wild mushrooms in an ice wine cream sauce, butternut squash soup infused with ice wine, ice wine cheese fondu, iced apricot filled cupcake, fire and ice wine s’mores, and pinot noir and white chocolate raspberry ice creams. Download all the recipes here under “the recipes.” While all the recipes were definitely tasty, my favorites were the pulled pork slider, cheese fondu, and s’more – which had a hint of heat from cayenne pepper and ice wine both in the chocolate and in the marshmallow! Those three were to die for! We also sampled NY state maple cotton candy, NY state cheeses, monk-made breads, balsamics and oils, fantastically flavored chocolates, Genesee beer, and ice wine, ice wine, ice wine!
Outside we took a chilly but fun tour of the winery and learned about the ice wine vs. regular wine making process, enjoyed the ice bar and ice sculpture carvings, and warmed ourselves by the heated toasting barrels before deciding to stow away in them.
At the conclusion of the Festival I finally met “Ice Berries Louis” – the dude who’s cocktail was our strongest competition throughout the four days of voting and the guy who nearly tied with us twice, both at the midnight voting deadline and the 10 a.m. deadline after a technical glitch prevented voting from closing at midnight. Because of the closeness of the competition and the system hiccup, the Festival decided to crown us both winners and gave both of us tickets to the festival. Our winning cocktails (see the cocktail recipes here under “the contest” – check out that amazing sounding Pear Weather Friend!) were supposed to be made and served to everyone at closing ceremonies, but due to an ingredient oops (Hmmmm, a trend? I think there’s a few contest-related things for them to work out for next year’s festival!) they had to postpone the tasting until a few weeks from now when we’ll be invited back with our friends, as well as an invitation extended to all the Festival attendees and general public, to sample our cocktails. Instead everyone received glasses of champagne topped with ice wine to toast to our success. But I’ll keep you posted when the real tasting comes along!
A magical day, indeed!
THANKS FOR GETTING US THERE EVERYONE! :)
Now go get yourself a bottle of Casa Larga’s Fiori Vidal Ice Wine and kick back with a Pear Weather Friend!
