Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Rosso di Madera, Moscato Giallo, and the
authentic Moscato Rosa) as well as Aleatico, all
of which originated in Italy. This, plus the huge
volumes of Moscato Bianco wine produced
annually, and the almost twelve thousand hec-
tares (11,729 hectares, to be precise) planted to
it throughout Italy, make it unlikely that
Moscato Bianco is anything but an Italian
native grape, though some experts still favor a
Greek origin. For this reason, I strongly disa-
gree with those who continue to refer to this
variety by its French name, Muscat à Petit
Grains, as it is neither an original nor a particu-
larly important grape variety of France. When
writing about wine grapes, it behooves those in
the know to call the variety either by its Italian
name, Moscato Bianco, or by a Greek one.
Moscato Bianco and its wines have long and
very strong associations with almost every Ital-
ian region. In Piedmont, Moscato Bianco has
been grown since at least the 1300s, but its cul-
tivation became especially important in the fi f-
teenth century, when Duke Emanuele Filiberto
di Savoia (Savoia was the reigning noble house
of Piedmont, and later became Italy's fi rst and
only royal family) passed legislation limiting
imports, in an effort to advance the cause of
local wine production. Though it is truly grown
all over Italy (I do not believe it is missing from
any Italian region), Moscato Bianco is thus
mainly associated with Piedmont, where it was
highly popular in the sixteenth century, espe-
cially in the provinces of Asti, Alessandria, and
Cuneo. A statute of La Morra (dated 1511) cites
that any new vineyard had to be planted to at
least one-fi fth
muscatellum.
The most impor-
tant centers of production were Canelli (thus
the wine's alias) and Santo Stefano Belbo. From
these towns, Moscato Bianco vines were
shipped everywhere: a document from 1593
tells of an order for “vines of Moscatello” to be
sent to the Duke of Mantua. Moscato Bianco
became so important for the local Piedmontese
economy that the Consortium of Moscato d'Asti
was formed in 1932, two years before Barolo's.
Moscato Bianco has long made two of the
country's most famous and best loved wines,
Piedmont's Asti Spumante and Moscato d'Asti.
Asti production was well described by Croce in
1606, when his Moscato wine proved so suc-
cessful that he was forced to write the proce-
dure down for all to use—or accept that people
he didn't know would continue to pop by his
home asking how to go about it. Croce made his
sweet wine by stopping fermentation with
repeated fi ltrations and rackings; though it's
likely he didn't mean for the result to be a spar-
kling wine, it probably was, given his artisanal
winemaking process. In 1865, Carlo Gancia
imported the techniques he had learned in
Champagne for performing secondary refer-
mentation in the bottle and so, for a while, a
Moscato “Champagne” wine was produced in
Piedmont.
In Tuscany, Moscato Bianco was long at the
heart of Montalcino's most prized wine, which
was not Brunello, but moscadello di Montal-
cino (the wine's name is written
moscadello
not
moscatello
). A letter from Piero Aretino to a
friend, dated 1540, thanks the missive's recipi-
ent for the gift of “delicate moscadello, round
and light.” At the beginning of the seventeenth
century, Pope Urban VIII was known to be
quite the fan of moscadello. At this time, it was
already habitual for Montalcino's producers to
make two versions of moscadello, one sparkling
and another still, the latter from late-harvested
grapes. However, moscadello was always a very
expensive wine to make, and over time, Montal-
cino's producers preferred to concentrate on red
wine production.
In Puglia, Moscato di Trani was always
highly prized, such that the Moscato Bianco
grape was locally referred to as Moscato Reale.
Historically famous, the wine was already
being sold by the Venetians in the thirteenth
century, and it became so popular that in the
fourteenth century Roberto d'Angiò, Count of
Trani, had to limit exports from local and dis-
tant ports. Moscato di Trani's importance and
prestige were offi cially recognized when it
became Puglia's fi rst DOC wine in 1974. In Sic-
ily, Moscato Bianco grapes have always been
grown amid all the Moscato di Alessandria, and
