Niagara wine country celebrates ice wine festival

Ontario's premier wine-making region will awaken from its seasonal slumber celebrate the 19th annual Niagara Icewine Festival over the next three weekends.

Most of the grapes still gripping to the vines in Nagara-on-the-Lake are just for the show - the harvesting happened in mid-December before the recent deep freeze.

Winemakers told the CBC's Debbie Lightle-Quan that the yield this year was a little less than average, but the quality looks good.

"We've had so many opportunities to pick these grapes," said Bruce Nicholson, a winemaker with Inniskillin. "We get that minus eight minimum that we want and as you know we've had a lot of cold temperatures."

The majority of the ice wine made in the region is shipped overseas to places like China where it is considered a delicacy.

Niagara winemakers will begin to bottle the harvest sometime in early spring.

Click on the video above to see Lightle-Quan's report.