Cool rewards for ice wine pioneers

CHANGCHUN－Summer is usually harvest season for grapes. But in northeastern China's Jilin province, vineyard owner Jin Yinhao has to wait for another five months before his can be picked.

The grapes grown on Jin's 17.3-hectare vineyard in the city of Ji'an are called beibinghong, a local variety of Amur grape that can ferment into ice wine with no need for skin maceration.

Known as liquid gold, ice wine is a type of dessert wine produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. For a wine to be designated as ice wine, the grapes must be picked at around-8 C.

"Good wine is actually planted. We have to manually weed and also control the yield to ensure the quality of every grape," said Jin, 63, adding that the grape variety could yield 22.5 metric tons a hectare but the yield was deliberately limited to 6 tons.

The beibinghong variety was developed by experts from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 2008, and Ji'an has since developed a complete ice wine industry chain that covers grape growing, processing, logistics and sales.

The city has the perfect climate for growing wine grapes as the Changbai Mountains shield the area from the chilly northern wind and the Yalu River brings in warm air.

"Because of the strict climate requirements, ice wine production bases can only be found in a few places such as Canada, Germany and Austria," said Sun Yanfeng, director of the Yalu River Valley Amur Grape Wine Research and Development Center in Ji'an.