A wonderful aroma of candied pineapple, Bartlett pear, honey and caramel.

An exotic dessert wine with ripe tree fruit flavours, balancing acidity and a rich mouth-feel.

A full-flavoured, exceptionally well-balanced Icewine with flavours of sweet juicy peach, pear and starfruit. Lingering notes of tangy citrus (lemon drops).

When Hungarian-born Andrew Peller arrived in Canada in 1927, his dream was to persuade his new country to learn to love and appreciate fine wine as much as his fellow Europeans. After numerous setbacks and involvements in the brewing and newspaper industries – and with the financial help of his son Joe, by now a doctor – Peller Family Estates was finally born in 1969.

The Pellers are Icewine pioneers, being among the first families to explore the possibilities of this unique Canadian style of wine. But they went further, planting their Niagara Peninsula vineyards closer to Lake Ontario in an effort to make their Icewine fresher and more food-friendly.

Producing Icewine is an extraordinarily laborious process, involving the thawing and freezing of grapes on numerous occasions, picking them at the perfect moment and, in the winery, a long, slow pressing during which the winery workers have been known to stage a few games of hockey to pass the time.

The wines that result – uniquely unctuous but with a piercing streak of lip-smacking freshness – are delicious on their own, but acquire new dimensions alongside food. A trait best showcased by Peller’s in-house chef, Jason Parsons, aka ‘the Willy Wonka of Icewine.’

Eye-widening dishes include suckling pig marinated in Icewine, candy floss jelly made with Icewine – and a ‘blue ice dessert’ which involves soaking a wheel of Québec blue cheese in six litres of Icewine for two weeks before serving. Wow.

Will pair beautifully with soft cheeses, or spicy cuisine.