2004 Standing Store Vidal Ice (Finger Lakes)

Standing Stone, a winery in the Finger Lakes region of New York offers one of the best values in dessert wines with their Vidal Ice. The wine is made from vidal blanc grapes and rather than letting the grapes freeze on the vine as would be required with a true “ice wine”, they pick the grapes after the leaves have dropped from the vines and then they commercially freeze them just before the crush. The resulting wine is full of sweet nectar fruit such as apricots and nectarines with a honey nose and zing. This is a really mouthwatering wine that doesn’t have the cloying finish of many other dessert wines. It consistently earns a 90 score from Wine Spectator. Alcohol level is approximately 12% with 21% of residual sugar.

Vintage New York in the city carries the wine for $27 at both their Soho and Upper West side stores. It can also be bought directly from the Standing Store website for $25 or at the winery. One nice thing about the Standing Stone website is that they list where in New York State you can wine their wines at either retail stores or in restaurants.
Finally, while researching this wine, I came across a podcast from The Wine Scout where Patricia, the woman behind the site, interviews Marti Macinski, the owner of Standing Store. It’s worth a listen and the site itself is worth checking out.