World's Best Dessert Wine

Just because there's three feet of snow on the ground doesn't mean Casa Larga is closed for the season. Inside the Bella Vista events facility stands plenty of varieties to sample including the world's best ice wine.

While coming home from an assignment in Buffalo today I stopped off to see Mutti. She lives close to Rochester and we both share an affinity for Finger Lakes wine. The award-winning Casa Larga Vineyards and Winery sits, practically, in her backyard so we paid it a short visit.

Inside, Kelly was pouring samples for a few highbrow customers. It would have been delightful if she could have topped off the glass that Mutti and I shared. For $5, we ended up splitting roughly four tablespoons of the 2005 vintage that won the prestigious Best Dessert Wine at the International Wine Spirits Competition in London last year.

It carried a hint of honey and peach, pineapple, apricot and even butterscotch, super sweet and delicious.

Ice wine or Eiswein as it called because it was first made in Germany costs dearly because it's very difficult to create.

The optimum level of sugar and flavor in the grapes means waiting for extreme temperatures between 9°-14°F to freeze the harvest before picking by hand. Sometimes it takes an entire vine to make a single half bottle of ice wine. If the grapes are picked too early the texture and subtle flavors are lost. Afterward, the Riesling grapes go through several weeks of fermentation followed by months of barrel aging.

The award-winning bottle we sampled retails for $35 while the ruby red Cabernet France Ice Wine will set you back $75. Mutti and me stuck with the sample and licked our lips dry. Kelly offered us a champagne chaser with a wonderful crisp finish to make up the difference.