Duo gives unique twist to ice cream and wine
BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer

MANALAPAN - If you're lucky, like Manalapan resident Scott Fichten, your college roommate not only helps provide you with happy memories of your past, but also comes up with something that just might help provide a financial future as bright and happy as those halcyon days of youth.

So it is for Fichten, 41, because two years ago his former college roommate at the State University of New York-Oswego, Randy Freeman, 41, who remained a good friend, approached him with a business investment proposition that was based on a new twist to two old favorites that no one had heretofore thought of introducing to each other, let alone marrying.

Freeman, who grew up on a farm and lives in the wine country of upstate New York, came up with the idea of bringing wine and ice cream together in a marriage of flavors. He was clearly declaring that sometimes opposites not only attract, but they complement each other as those who were intended to be together often do.

Two years later the friends are marketing Glace de Vino, a wine-layered ice cream that comes in four flavors and is available locally at the wine store at Wegmans, Manalapan, and Delicious Orchards, Colts Neck.

Freeman said he and Fichten held the first sampling of their product in the Finger Lakes wine country where Freeman, a graphic artist, makes his living by developing maps for people who are visiting the wineries in the region.

Speaking of that first tasting, Fichten said, "People went crazy for it." He said, "there is nothing like it on the market" and that is why he and Freeman decided to package the product simply but elegantly in pint containers that sell for $4.49 at Wegmans.

Freeman said anyone who tries the product should "look to the layers" which consist of wine or amaretto that has been cooked down to a sauce reduction and then layered throughout the ice cream which is available in Strawberry Cream Chardonnay, Raspberry Merlot Cheese-cake, Chocolate Amaretto Cream Sherry and Chocolate Cabernet Sauvignon.

Freeman said the right combination of ice cream and layering produces a taste experience that starts out as sweet ice cream on the tongue and is immediately followed by the bouquet of the wine which can be tasted farther back in the throat.

Journalistic integrity dictated that a News Transcript reporter sample all four flavors, of which the Chocolate Amaretto Cream Sherry emerged as the favorite.

Fichten said the product took off after it was featured recently on the Martha Stewart "Living Today" radio show. He said orders began coming in from all over the country.

This morning, June 20, Glace de Vino will be featured on NBC-TV's "Today" show.

More information is available at www.glacedevino.com.