Ice wine harvest marks end of Germany's wine-growing year
Despite the bitter cold, wine growers in south-west Germany were picking the last frozen grapes from the vine on Saturday to make the country's traditional ice wine.
A sweet dessert wine, this year's ice wine will benefit from the recent dry weather, according to the president of the Baden wine growers' association,Kilian Schneider.
"The ice-wine harvest marks a successful conclusion to the 2016 wine-growing year," said his counterpart in Wuerttemberg, Hermann Hohl.
The colder weather would also help the quality of the wine, he said.
In other regions, the ice-wine harvest already began in November.
The grapes are pressed while still frozen, ideally in temperatures lower than 7 degrees Celcius.
Despite not being sold in commercially significant amounts, ice wine is still seen as one of the country's flagship products. (dpa)
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