Vidal

Vidal is a white grape best known from Canada, where it’s famous for producing rich, intensely sweet Icewine. Expect peach, apricot and pineapple with honey, citrus and tropical fruit, balanced by refreshing acidity. It’s brilliant with cheesecake, fruit tarts, crème brûlée, blue cheese and tropical fruit desserts.

Taste:

Sweet, luscious and absolutely loaded with fruit.

Vidal is most famous in its Icewine form, where it produces intensely concentrated flavours of peach, apricot, pineapple and mango, often joined by honey, citrus and marmalade.

Despite all that sweetness, good Vidal Icewine has plenty of acidity, which keeps the wine fresh and stops it feeling overly heavy.

The texture can be rich and almost syrupy, but the combination of tropical fruit and acidity gives it a bright, vibrant finish.

Vidal can also produce dry table wines, but Icewine is where it really made its name.

Basically, winter did something useful for once.

Food Pairings:

Vidal Icewine is very much in its element when dessert arrives.

Try it with cheesecake, crème brûlée, peach tart, apricot tart, fruit tart, lemon tart or tropical fruit desserts featuring mango or pineapple.

It’s also brilliant with fresh fruit, particularly peaches, apricots, mango and pineapple.

For something richer, pair it with vanilla panna cotta, bread and butter pudding or a fruit-based pavlova.

Sweet wine and cheese is another excellent combination. Blue cheese is a classic match, with the saltiness balancing Vidal's intense sweetness. Mature Cheddar can also work beautifully.

The golden rule with dessert wine is that the wine should generally be at least as sweet as the dessert. Thankfully, Vidal Icewine isn't exactly struggling in that department.

Similar Wines:

If you enjoy Vidal, Icewine is the obvious category to explore further, including versions made from other grapes such as Riesling.

Riesling is particularly worth trying, as its high acidity makes it brilliant for intensely sweet styles.

Sauternes offers a rich French take on dessert wine with honeyed and stone-fruit flavours, while Tokaji brings another legendary combination of sweetness and acidity from Hungary.

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More About Vidal:

Vidal – often called Vidal Blanc – is a hybrid grape created in France by crossing Ugni Blanc with another hybrid variety, Rayon d'Or.

Its ability to survive extremely cold conditions made it particularly valuable in Canada, where it has become one of the country's signature Icewine grapes.

For genuine Canadian Icewine, grapes must freeze naturally on the vine before being harvested and pressed while frozen. The water inside the grapes remains frozen, allowing producers to extract a tiny amount of intensely concentrated, sugary juice.

The yields are tiny, the harvest can involve picking grapes in seriously cold temperatures and the bottles aren't exactly enormous.

Suddenly the price makes a lot more sense.