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Gold Medal Winners Named for Ice Wine

Monday, March 8, 2010

by Thomas Hartley

 
Wines from the Lake Erie, Niagara and Finger Lakes regions were the top three gold medal-winners in the first-ever New York Ice Wine Competition held recently.

Best-of-Show winner Casa Larga edged the two other wines by one point.

“The quality of the wines ... was in line with some of the best ice wines in the world,” said competition chairwoman Lorraine Hems, an instructor at Rochester Institute of Technology, which hosted the contest.

To qualify, the wines had to have been made from grapes grown in New York state and frozen on the vine at harvest time.

In Sonoma, Calif., at the recent Grand Harvest Awards competition, Chautauqua County’s Liberty Vineyards & Winery (Sheridan) led New York wineries with three gold medals for its 2008 Pinot Grigio, 2009 Riesling and Diamond.

Chautauqua County’s Merritt Estate (Forestville) won a gold medal for its gewürztraminer semi-dry white wine.