I just acquired a magnum of 1999 Iniskillin Ice Wine. I’ve never seen this format of ice wine, so I had to get it. The auction said the bottle was signed, but no other info. When I received it, I found that the bottle is signed by the two founders of Iniskillin - Donald Ziraldo and Karl Kaiser.
I’ve dropped an email to Iniskillin, but the winery has changed hands since the founders owned it. They may not know anything about this bottling. Would anyone here know why this unusual format was bottled and why the founders would have signed it? I’m assuming it was for some sort of event, but that’s just a guess.
I still have 2 '99 (1 Vidal & 1 Ries) from Inniskillin, but obviously not in Mag. Nothing stands out as being special/ noteworthy in '99, so as you suspect, likely from an event. Yours looks somewhat darker than either of mine (well at least the last time I looked at them), but likely still in great shape.
I had dinner once with Karl at his home (across from the winery) just after he & Donald had sold the winery. He was still quietly making all the Icewine for Vincor/Constellation for Ontario and had set-up a miniature winery in his garage, having custom mini versions of all the presses & fermenters made in Germany just for himself. His home cellar was obviously full of Inniskillin wines/ icewine. He served his own Gewurtz which was delicious (in an old pop bottle), we brought some Michel Gros '04’s, then he opened a few older Icewines from the 80’s & 90’s which followed a long discussion, which to this day is still a big vinous highlight for me.
His belief is that Icewine (from Canada anyway) develops over 15-20 years, then holds at a similar maturity level for ages. In other words, he had no qualms of his vidal icewines going over the hill.
You’ll need quite the group for a mag of that.
My brother-in-law came across a 1906 Sauternes magnum in 2005 and we opened it at a party in 2006. The Sauternes was darker than the Iniskillin and we figured it was dead. It tasted like Sherry. Not just any Sherry, a great Sherry. If the Sauternes turns to Sherry after a hundred years, what does an Ice Wine in magnum taste like at 20 plus years. I’d put together a party around that bottle. Group eats and precursor wines and the grand finale, a glass of aged Ice Wine to go with your dessert of “???”.
That’s really interesting, thanks for the anecdote. I have limited experience but haven’t noticed much additional complexity in Canadian Icewine as it ages. Maybe I’ll look for an older example.
Thanks for the info guys. Ice wine can be interesting to age. If it was made with a decent amount of acidity, then it will age well and develop some great secondary and tertiary notes without becoming cloying. The acidity backbone is what allows Sauternes to age for decades.
I’ve had a couple of other 1999s, 2000, and 2001 ice wines and they’ve been excellent, so I’m thinking this wine will be good as well. The darkness could indicate something about the storage conditions, but I can see the entirety of the cork and it’s in fine shape. That sugar can shield the wine from adverse conditions pretty well.
The color may not be all that much darker than normal, just looks that way due to the size of the bottle. This is something I have noticed with wines in 5 gallon carboys. The wine always looks darker in carboy than once its bottled or in the glass.
