(Yahoo) - A maverick Margaret River winemaker who could soon be dubbed ice man is causing a stir with a side project this vintage. Fraser Gallop Estate’s Clive Otto is trying to create the region’s first ice wine, a style more commonly made in the cooler regions of central Europe and Canada from grapes that have been naturally frozen on the vine. Mr Otto is making a similar style of dessert wine by freezing late picked chardonnay grapes overnight in a commercial freezer at -16C.

Inspired by similar ventures on Australia’s east coast, Mr Otto went about finding a way to emulate some of Europe’s most extravagant iced drops.

“I had heard of some Tasmanian producers like Frogmore Creek were doing an iced riesling by cryoextraction methods, so I thought that chardonnay would be the variety to use because we have chardonnay and semillon growing on the estate,” he said.