If you checked the temperature on Friday, you probably didn’t spend too much time outdoors. But for staff and volunteers at Mazza Vineyards on East Lake Road, the weather conditions were perfect for picking grapes to make their annual ice wine.
“The whole idea with picking ice wine is to freeze the water in the grapes. They remain frozen, you press them while they’re frozen, so you get a much more concentrated juice,” said Robert Mazza, President & Owner of Mazza Vineyards. “The grapes have to freeze on the vine and then be harvested, not harvested and then frozen.”
For Robert Mazza, it’s his 41st frozen grape harvest, and he said the harvest can happen anytime between mid-November to the third week in January depending on the temperature…