Thursday, January 12, 2012

Vermont Ice Cider


Recently I was put in charge of bringing the dessert wine to dinner. Instantly I thought of ice wine (aka Eiswein), a sweet, crisp wine I had sampled at an Austrian wine tasting a year ago. I also heard a great bit on the Crush about ice wines that revived my interest.  I breezed into my go-to spot, Astor wines and walked confidently to the dessert wine section to see that...yikes, these ice wines were classy, starting at $45 (for a half bottle). The thing about tastings is that..they're free. By my calculations I must have drank $200 worth of ice wine that night!

For a low-key night at home, a plan B was in order. When I saw this Eden Ice Cider from Vermont I knew I had to try it. The process actually quite different than ice wine: the apples are harvested, kept in cold storage, and then frozen, melted off and fermented. The result is a wonderful, refreshing dessert wine that would pair wonderfully with a lot of things, a rich carmel cake, ice cream, pudding all come to mind, although I could probably put away a bottle of this over an evening by itself! The best thing about this ice cider is the price point.  I found this at Astor wines for $19.99, a steal! It's worth noting that this Northern Spy Ice Cider is on the list right now at WD-50. If it's good enough for Wylie, it's good enough for me.

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