Feature: Canadian icewine eyes expansion in Chinese market

Already well-known in China, the Canadian icewine now hopes to expand its share in the Chinese market.

Canada, particularly the fertile Niagara Peninsula in Ontario and the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, consistently undergoes freezing in winter and becomes the world's largest icewine producer.

Known as liquid gold, icewine is a rare gift from nature. For a wine to be designated as icewine, the grapes must be picked at minus eight degrees Celsius or colder. It is a type of dessert wine produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine.

The sugar and other dissolved solids do not freeze, but the water does, allowing a more concentrated grape to be pressed from the frozen grapes, resulting in a smaller amount of more concentrated, very sweet wine.

Here in Niagara, a belated winter means vineyards will not be harvested until mid-January this year, but winemakers believe the production and quality are no less.

"Sugar levels are good, everybody was worried about the rains into the harvest, but these Vidals are pretty hardy, thick skin," said Matthew Vanderwal, assistant winemaker at Joseph's Estate Wines.

Joseph Pohorly, the founder of Joseph's Estate Wines in Niagara-on-the-Lake, is one of the pioneers to make Canadian icewines in 1980s. He upgraded the hand press to mechanical which helped advance the icewine making in Niagara.

Now the winery has been sold to a Chinese family, and Pohorly is pleased to stay as a consultant. "The Chinese people are doing very nice work here, nice wine, excellent icewine, which is being exported to China," Pohorly told Xinhua.

Canada is the world's largest consistent producer of icewines and China is the largest consumer of this product.

Statistics from the Canadian Vintners Association (CVA) show the icewine exports to China in 2014 was 72,422 liters worth 6.69 million Canadian dollars (about 4.68 million U.S. dollars).

However, according to Sherry Li, executive assistant at Joseph's Estate Wines, the Chinese market share is less than 10 percent in Canadian icewine sales, "China has a bigger part to play."

Meanwhile, vintners are convinced that Canada's icewine reputation might provide the perfect gateway for its often neglected table-wine exports.

The CVA has launched its international export strategy for Canadian reds and whites, a plan to make Canada the premium producer of what are called "cool-climate wines," a name that hints at Canada's icewine status to help attract Chinese consumers. Endi