One vine yields roughly one bottle of icewine. That single fact explains the entire price list.
The short answer: budget forty to one hundred dollars for a 375 ml bottle, buy Vidal for classic tropical richness and Riesling for higher acidity and longer ageing, serve it at seven to ten degrees in small pours, and treat it as the dessert rather than something to drink alongside one.
Why Canada owns this category
Icewine requires grapes to freeze naturally on the vine at minus eight degrees Celsius or colder before pressing. Canada is one of very few countries where that happens reliably every single year, which is why Canadian icewine is the world benchmark rather than a curiosity. Harvest happens by hand, usually between two and six in the morning while the fruit is still frozen solid.
The economics follow from the biology. A vine that would yield three to five bottles of table wine yields roughly one bottle of icewine, because most of the water stays behind in the press as ice. VQA certification governs the whole process in Ontario and British Columbia, including the temperature threshold and the ban on artificially freezing fruit.
What to buy
Vidal is the workhorse and the classic Canadian expression: apricot, mango, honey, a thick texture and immediate appeal. Inniskillin's Vidal icewine is the reference bottle and typically runs fifty to seventy five dollars for 375 ml. Jackson-Triggs Reserve Vidal sits around forty to fifty five and is the best value entry point in the category.
Riesling icewine is the connoisseur's choice: higher acidity, lime and petrol notes under the sweetness, and the structure to age for a decade or more. Peller Estates' Signature Series Riesling icewine is the widely available benchmark at roughly sixty to ninety dollars for 375 ml. Cabernet Franc icewine exists as a rarer rose styled version and is worth trying once.
How to serve it
Seven to ten degrees Celsius, which is colder than a dessert wine most people are used to but not fridge cold. Pour two to three ounces. A 375 ml bottle serves six to eight people comfortably, which is why it is a better dinner party purchase than the price tag suggests. Use a small white wine glass, not a liqueur glass, so the aromatics have somewhere to go.
Opened and recorked in the fridge, icewine holds for three to five days without meaningful loss. Unopened, a good Riesling icewine will improve for ten to fifteen years.
Pairings that work
The rule is that the wine must be sweeter than the dessert, or the dessert makes the wine taste thin. Safe: blue cheese, foie gras, creme brulee, tarte Tatin, lemon tart, aged cheddar. Risky: chocolate, which fights the acidity unless the wine is a Cabernet Franc icewine. Best of all, and the Canadian answer: serve it alone after the meal, cold, with nothing but the glass.
Where to buy
Ontario icewine sells through the LCBO and at the wineries; British Columbia through BC Liquor Stores and direct; Quebec through the SAQ. Buying at the winery is usually the same price, but the library vintages and the small format experiments only exist on site. Airport duty free carries a large multiple and should be the last resort.