Sparkling wine + Ice wine [Recipes]

2008 Dec 30

I had dinner at the Hillebrand Winery in the summer, and one of the drinks our server recommended was ice wine poured into a champagne flute, and then topped up with sparkling wine. It was delicious, and I want to re-create the drink for New Years. Can anyone recommend a type of ice wine + sparkling wine to do this. I went to their website but the menu has changed and the drink is not listed. It doesn't have to be Hillebrand, but it does have to be affordable!

2009 Jan 4
I think this is a fairly bullet-proof recipe. For the sparkling wine you could use anything from decent cava (Codorniu, Segura Viudas) to Prosecco to Niagara stuff (Trius, J-T, Vineland, etc.) to California (Domaine Chandon) to Henckel Trocken to Champagne. And for the icewine you could easily use a select late harvest or special select late harvest instead of icewine (the Henry of Pelham select late harvest vidal is a regular-list item at the LCBO and is a good value). Take a walk on the wild side and use a red icewine or late harvest!

The results will be directly proportional to the quality of the ingredients you use, though even Codorniu cava plus any select late harvest vidal will be very nice and different. I haven't experimented, but I am guessing that it makes sense to have the quality of the sweet and sparking wines be more or less similar.

The ratio between the sparkling and sweet wine will depend a bit on how sweet the icewine/late harvest is, but it probably is more dependent on how sweet people like their wine (and what you are serving it with). Again, there is a large margin of error here--I might start with about 5:1 and see how it tastes--you can always add more of the sweet stuff.

I use this mixture where I might use demi-sec Champagne, which can be tricky to find at the LCBO.

2009 Jan 5
Captain Caper's Bugetary
Sparkling Wine + Ice Wine

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Brights President's Champagne

plus

Andre's Alpenweiss with an Ice Cube.

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Times are a tuff, I tells ya.