CLEVELAND — Ohio’s cold winter climate makes it ideal for creating a seasonal specialty drink.

Grapes need to spend several hours in below-freezing temperatures before they’re able to freeze on the vine.

With temperatures in the teens for several hours overnight Friday, it created the perfect conditions for ice wine grapes in the Grand River Valley Wine Region.

Cindy Lindberg harvested the frosty fruit by hand Saturday morning to prevent damaging the vines. 

“This is like the nectar of the gods,” she said. 

It’s something the owner of Grand River Cellars Winery has been doing almost all of her life. 

“I mean when you grow up out here. We used to pick the neighbor’s grapes as kids,” she said.

But the neighbors weren’t using the grapes to make this particular product. 

“It produces this amazing sweet wine,” Lindberg said. 

The vivant blanc grapes were grown in hopes that they’d freeze come winter.

They’re a hearty variety that can withstand varying temperatures between the traditional harvest time in the fall to when it freezes now, said Lindberg.

The ice wine grapes made up about four acres of the nearly 160 acres of vineyards Gene Sigel oversees. 

“It seems like, oh, it’s been cold different days, but it takes 18-degrees for six hours to freeze the grapes fully solid,” Sigel said. 

Sigel watches the weather and the crop, closely. 

“You can tell they’re ready to pick and to press because if you were getting a grape from the grocery store, the juice would come running out of it,” he said while squeezing a grape. “These are so frozen, there’s really just a little coating of juice.”

That small bit of juice is packed with flavor and sugar that’s squeezed out by a hydraulic press. 

“When we harvest vivant blanc as a table wine, we can get 170 gallons per ton,” winemaker Michael Harris said. “We’re gonna get about 50 to 70 gallons per ton of ice wine.”

Harris said the extra time on the vine makes a big difference. 

“The sugar of this is almost triple the concentrate of that of a normal table wine,” he said. “It’s just thick and viscous.”

It takes about two hours to press a basket full of a ton of grapes. The pressed juice then takes about a month to fully ferment. It’s a slow, cold process, but the fruits of the labor are sweet. 

“It’s a unique product and when you have something so unique and special, you really take time to nurture it,” Lindberg said. 

The finished products will be celebrated in early March at the annual Ice Wine Festival.