CELPIP Reading Part 3 Practice Test: Canadian Ice Wine and the Winter Harvest

Paragraph A

Canada is one of the world’s leading producers of ice wine, a sweet dessert wine made from grapes that have frozen naturally while still on the vine. The drink is not a Canadian invention. It is said to have been discovered in Germany in the late 1700s, when an early frost caught growers by surprise and they pressed their frozen grapes rather than lose the harvest. For centuries afterward, European winemakers could produce it only in the occasional year when the weather happened to cooperate. What Canada offers is reliability. In southern Ontario and in parts of British Columbia, winters are cold enough almost every year for the grapes to freeze solid, while the summers are warm enough to ripen them properly first.

Paragraph B

Making ice wine requires patience and nerve. Healthy grapes are left hanging long after the regular harvest in the fall, often into December or January. During those extra weeks, growers stretch nets over the vines to keep hungry birds away, and they risk losing the whole crop to rot, hail or a sudden thaw. Under Canadian rules, the grapes may be picked only once the temperature has dropped to −8°C or lower, so crews are often called out in the middle of the night, when it is coldest. The frozen grapes are pressed immediately, before they can soften. Because most of the water stays behind as ice, each grape gives up only a few drops of thick, very sweet juice.

Paragraph C

These conditions explain why ice wine is so expensive. A vineyard that would normally produce many bottles of table wine yields only a small fraction of that amount as ice wine. For this reason, it is usually sold in slim 375 mL bottles, half the size of a standard wine bottle, and a single bottle can easily cost $50 or more. A large share of Canada’s production is exported, especially to Asia, where it is a popular gift. Its success abroad has also attracted fraud. Fake bottles, sometimes made by adding sugar to ordinary wine, have been discovered in several countries, and Canadian producers have called for stricter labelling to protect their reputation.

Paragraph D

In recent years, ice wine has also become a reason to visit wine country in the off-season. Each January, wineries in Ontario hold festivals where visitors sample ice wine at outdoor bars carved from ice and taste it alongside foods ranging from cheese to chocolate. A few wineries even invite guests to join a night-time harvest. Growers, however, are increasingly worried about milder winters. Some have had to wait until February for a cold enough night, and in a few seasons certain vineyards could not harvest at all. Some researchers expect that the best places for ice wine may gradually move northward or to higher ground as the climate warms.