Stratus Red Icewine 2023

Stoyka is well aware of the struggles icewine has faced in recent years with a diminishing appetite from consumers but he’s not about to give up on it at Stratus where sales of the Canada’s most famous sweet wine have never waned. ‘I’ll never stop making it, it’s in our DNA,’ he said. ‘I get frustrated when people poo-poo it. For me, I want to make icewine to compete with the best sweet wines in the world. It’s like our forgotten golden goose.’ Harvesting icewine at Stratus is not too stressful. It’s picked at the first opportunity and with less brix (sugar) than most icewines in the peninsula. The assemblage is 43% Petit Verdot, 35% Cabernet Franc and 22% Cabernet Sauvignon that was harvest on Jan. 15 with 14% abv, substantially higher than your average bottle of icewine. It has lovely herbaceous notes on the nose with strawberry tart, black raspberries, red currants, and dark cherries. It has a beautiful and luxurious texture, vibrancy, and sweetness, yes, but nicely balanced by the racy acidity, keeping all those sweet cherries, summer strawberries and herbs in balance. Great aging potential here until 2032. Score – 94. (Rick VanSickle, winesinniagara.com, May 14, 2024)