It's not easy harvesting ice wines as Hainle Vineyards Estate Winery manager Walter Huber found out on Sunday. More than $30,000 of ice wine was stolen from his Peachland winery.

(SHANNON QUESNEL / iNFOnews.ca)

UPDATE: 10:33 a.m. Nov. 28, 2013

PEACHLAND - West Kelowna RCMP say they're looking for a light silver-blue Ford Explorer possibly associated with the theft of wines worth $30,000 and an Acer Notebook computer from the Hainie Vineyards Estate Winery November 24. The truck was seen in the area at the time of the offence. There are no descriptions of the suspects at this time.

Anyone with information can call the West Kelowna RCMP at 250-768-2880. Remain anonymous by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477, leaving a tip online at www.crimestoppers.net or by texting your tip to CRIMES (274637) ktown.

10:03 a.m. Nov. 26, 2013

PEACHLAND - Roughly $30,000 of ice wine was stolen from the historic Hainle Vineyards Estate Winery on Sunday following a television broadcast discussing a valuable collection on the property.

Wine maker and manager Walter Huber said a Global B.C. crew visited the Peachland winery Friday to talk about the early ice wine harvesting season and the estate's old and valuable ice wines.

Two days later Huber's computer systems are telling him there's a problem. At first he thought it was a false alarm. There have been instances where winery machinery have set off the sensors but that wasn't the case from 8:15 to 8:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.

"It was very surprising to me," he said. The winery had a severe fire in the past year but it's never been broken into.

Huber said the thieves grabbed what they could out of the wine cellar after the alarms sounded. They stole more than $30,000 of wine, including a 1983 Riesling worth $9,800, but it could have been worse.

"You could steal $100,000," Huber said if a person knew what he was looking for. There are also three bottles of 1978 Riesling ice wine, worth $1 million each, locked in a safe. These were some of the 178 bottles of commercial ice wine made by his estate which also became the first North American ice wine producer.

Ice wine is something Huber's family specializes in. At first it was created for others' enjoyment but the estate eventually began making ice wine for sale.

Huber said making ice wine is more of an event than a process.

"It's tough to make ice wine. People really freeze when they are out there. It's more like a sport."

He said this year's harvest was good. Other wineries enjoyed the same benefits of the November cold snap.

To contact a reporter for this story, to send photos or videos, email Shannon Quesnel at squesnel@infotelnews.ca, call 250-488-3065, send tweets to @shannonquesnel1 or @InfoNewsPentict.

News from © iNFOnews, 2013