Sheldrake Point Ice Apple Wine NV

The Sheldrake Point Vineyard 2010 Ice Apple Splash is a non-vintage apple dessert wine made by cryo-concentrating and fermenting apple juice. The blend of the apple juice is 34% Liberty, 18% Mutsu, 18% Goldrush, 18% Major (a bittersweet apple), 6% Dabinette (another bittersweet apple) and 6% Chisel Jersey (another bittersweet). 900 gallons of the above blend were trucked from Cornell Orchards to the freezers at Regional Access on 01/14/11 in 3 cubical plastic tanks, which were frozen for 10 days at 11F. The plastic tanks were trucked back from Regional on 1/24/11, placed on the second tier of the pallet shelves, and allowed to melt for 2 days, giving 123 gallons of juice at 40.2 Brix. One tank was allowed to melt for another day, giving another 46 gallons at 34 Brix. After the initial thawing, the cube tanks were trucked back to Regional and frozen for another 4 days. 2 days of thawing gave 62 gallons at 33 Brix, at which point the tanks were trucked back to the freezers at Regional. The third round of thawing gave 11 gallons more juice at 38 Brix. The overall yield was 242 gallons of juice at 37 Brix. The juice was fermented, with VL1 yeast and additions of DAP and Fermaid K, by adding chilled juice in small increments so as to keep the Brix of the fermentation between 20 and 30 Brix. These additions took place over 3 weeks, and the fermentation was stopped by chilling at 20.6 Brix, 4 weeks after it began. 205 ppm SO2 was added after the fermentation had stopped. The fermentation temperature was kept between 62F and 66F throughout.