Somehow I accidentally stumbled on this G&M article on the apparent popularity of Canadian icewine in Asia, and while I suspect that any comment thread that comes here will eventually descend into a discussion of booze (Godwine’s law?), what struck me was the utter nonchalance of this bit off-handedly mentioned towards the end:
Debbie Inglis’s Niagara Vintage Harvesters is one. A professor at Brock University, Inglis inherited the 20-acre property, which is in the Four Mile Creek sub-appellation. Planted in 1981, it’s one of the oldest blocks of Riesling in Niagara. Inglis—who was named Niagara’s “Grape King” in 2010 for the quality of her vineyard—manages it with her husband, Rob. Inniskillin contracts her to net off four acres of Riesling for icewine and to deliver 3,000 litres of juice at between 38 and 40 Brix. If she’s paid for juice by the litre (rather than by the grape tonne), that would be as much as $90,000, three times what a regular fall harvest would fetch.
It’s the third week of January and the temperature’s supposed to fall to -10 or -11 by midnight. The wind chill puts it at -22. When I arrive at the vineyard at 11 p.m., Rob looks me over and says, “Is that the coat you’re wearing?” I have layers on, but it’s decided I need another coat to put underneath my coat. They lend me snow pants too. They’re not wowed by my two sets of gloves, but I’ll have to live with them.
The harvesters—an all-Vietnamese crew numbering about 18—arrive at midnight. A tractor lifts a bank of floodlights high, to shine down on the rows. A supply of flimsy wooden baskets gets unloaded and distributed. Debbie has chicken soup on the stove, meant for her husband and Steve, a winery hand, some time in the morning. The workers will get a meal break too, but the crew boss prefers they eat outside in the wind.
It’s a brutal, burning wind. After a thaw earlier in the month, there’s no snow on the ground, so the wind tries to lift the dirt. It’s already knocked down the sign at the entrance to the property, and now it balloons the chests of the scarecrows made from hazmat jumpsuits and Javex-bottle heads, and sends the paper hawks above spinning. After workers dump the grapes from their baskets into a bin, they toss the baskets high against the black sky and let the wind carry them to the next row.
Well, it’s the Report on Business…but it is remarkable still. Should the reporter get credit for mentioning that the crew boss wants the (Vietnamese) workers to eat outside in the comically inhospitable weather? It’s hard to know where to begin, there are so many awful flavours here that taste awful together.
