The Canadian Government has published new regulations which state that from now on, any bottle labelled and sold as ice wine must only be made from grapes that have been frozen on the vine, according to a Reuters report.

The tightening of the rules for producing Canada’s popular ice wine, a sweet dessert wine that is only made in cold climates, has been introduced to help crack down on fraudsters who sell mis-labelled bottles that do not make the grade. Some producers of counterfeit ice wine add artificial sweetener to mimic the wine’s sugary taste, while others freeze grapes after they have been picked.

The head of the Canadian Vintners’ Association said: “They can produce a fine wine, but that wine should not be allowed to be called ice wine.”

Thanks to a reliably cold climate, Canada is an important player in the international ice wine market: it exported 223,000 litres in 2012 and sold 180,000 litres domestically.

Because the frozen grapes only yield a small amount of sweet liquid, the dessert wine has a high cost and a high price. Grapes are left on the vine until the temperature falls to -8˚C over a prolonged period, and are usually harvested overnight. In Ontario these stricter ice wine rules have already been introduced but these new regulations will change the way the wine is made across the whole country.