Brewvine: Ice Wine at Mackinaw Trail Winery

in Petoskey just bottled a very special wine.

For this week’s Brewvine, Whitney Amann and photojournalist Jeremy Erickson show you what makes this wintry wine so special and how to make sure you can get a bottle.

“In years past when we release ice wine, people buy it up like crazy,” said  head of production Dustin Stabile. “We went five years without making ice wine so when it is available, people kind of want to get their hands on their share of it.”

This is only the third time in the past eight years has produced an ice wine because the conditions need to be just right.

The last time they had ice wine was in 2018 and they only ended up with 50 bottles.

But the dry fall and 17 degree temperatures we had on Christmas Eve, gave the perfect conditions to harvest the frigid fruit.

“This year we did 125 cases so we’re really excited that we should have enough to where we’ll get it into a lot more people’s hands,” he said.

The longer time on the vine and the frozen water concentrates the sugars in the fruit and gives the wine its unique flavor.

You can get a sneak peek at newest products by joining their wine club.

As a special treat for their members, their April wine club shipment will include a bottle of tasty ice wine.