Published: Saturday, December 30, 2006 By Ashley Matthews Burlington (VT) Free Press Staff Writer Photo by DARIA BISHOP, for the Free Press SHELBURNE -- Friday morning, pre-dawn, wasn't an ideal time for picking fruit. At 4 a.m., it was 16 degrees. Snow flurries whipped in a nagging wind. It was dark -- very dark. Despite the adversity, 10 people trekked through rows of grape vines at Shelburne Vineyard, collecting bunches of the fruit by the light of headlamps and truck headlights. The grapes were this season's last; the rest were plucked from the vines months ago. But this bronze-colored fruit, a hybrid grape called vidal blanc, will produce a small batch of a lucrative beverage called ice wine, a sweet dessert wine. The secret to creating ice wine, said Shelburne Vineyard owner Ken Albert, is to pick the grapes when they're frozen, which occurs at temperatures around 15 degrees. "When the grapes are frozen, the portions of the liquid that don't have any sugar are frozen solid," Albert explained, "but, the liquid with sugar is still slush. So, if you pick it at this temperature, you get half the juice, but it's twice as sweet." This is the seventh year Albert has produced ice wine made from organically grown grapes. This year is unique, he said, because nature hasn't cooperated with his wine-making schedule. "We're out here to basically harvest when the temperature is appropriate," Albert said. "All the years we've been doing it in the daytime, this is the first time we've had to do it at night for the temperature to be 15 or 20 degrees. This year, we just haven't had the right weather." This is also the first year Albert has harvested after Dec. 15. Ideally, the grapes are picked earlier in the season to keep the fruit from falling off the vines. "I don't know if it's global warming or what it is, but it's been a tough year for ice wine," he said. It was also a tough year for the people who pick grapes for the ice wine. The darkness of winter didn't produce ideal working conditions. One worker was taken to the hospital for stitches because he badly cut his hand. "I was very interested in doing this in the middle of the winter -- I thought it would be interesting," said Kathleen Smith, 46, of Burlington. "I'm not quite as interested in the middle of the night. I just don't like messing up my sleeping patterns." Jordan Berger, a senior at Champlain Valley Union High School, also meticulously plucked grapes among the adults, even though he isn't old enough to legally drink the fruity outcome of his labors. Unlike most of the workers toiling in the dark, Berger was laboring without pay. The Shelburne resident is studying wine-making for his Graduation Challenge, a project he will present at his high school before he graduates. "It's cold but good," Berger said, describing the work. "It's a lot of effort and a lot of payback, I guess. It's cold and dark, but we're learning something while we talk about ice wine, so it's interesting." Hours of picking yielded dozens of totes full of grapes. Around 6 a.m., workers began pressing the frozen grapes. Amber-colored liquid dripped from the sides of the presses, collecting in buckets. This valuable juice will ferment for about a month, then age until spring. Then it will be bottled, and the wine will age a few more months. Albert expects the 2006 ice wine to hit store shelves in summer. Last year's batch, about 40 cases, quickly sold out, so Albert hopes he'll have about 80 cases this year. Albert said the wine is more expensive than most Shelburne Vineyard wines. Vermont is a good place to create ice wine, he said, but it costs a lot to produce. "It's a precious commodity because you lose half the grapes on the ground and you lose half the grape as frozen water," Albert said. "For an ounce of juice, it costs us four times as much to produce and it's more expensive than a regular bottled wine." Contact Ashley Matthews at 651-4811 or amatthews@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com.	Hans Puck of Shelburne harvests frozen grapes by the light of a truck's headlights before dawn at Shelburne Vineyard on Friday. DARIA BISHOP, for the Free Press