Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the latter is a softer, creamier, less-sparkling
wine.
Other wines of note are Tuscany's
moscadello di Montalcino, a name that harkens
back to the medieval moscatellum with which
Moscato Bianco is identifi ed, though it also has
an unfortunate association with Moscatello Sel-
vatico, a related but different variety. However,
according to no less an expert than Franco
Biondi-Santi of the world-famous Montalcino
estate, Moscadello di Montalcino used to be
made with a local variant that differed substan-
tially from the typical Moscato Bianco. Was it
an altogether different variety or just a site-
specifi c biotype? We don't know, yet, though all
the producers I have talked to over the years
agree that modern nursery plantings have been
of the Moscato Bianco grown everywhere else.
In an effort to recuperate the original variety
that was at the heart of Montalcino's famous
wine, the well-known Montalcino Col d'Orcia
estate performed massal selections a decade
ago by literally sending their people (clearly,
with permission) into other estates' vineyards,
looking for the original Montalcino
Moscato
variant. Franco Biondi-Santi believed the origi-
nal biotype (or is it an altogether separate vari-
ety?) produced richer, deeper, and more fra-
grant wines. Moscadello di Montalcino is
usually made in a late-harvest or air-dried style,
and is frankly sweet; very few producers still
make it in the sparkling version that was once
also made.
In Valle d'Aosta, the wonderful Chambave
Moscato is 100 percent Moscato Bianco, grown
in the countryside around the pretty little town
of Chambave in the middle part of the region. It
is available in dry and sweet styles, the latter
made from air-dried, or
fl é t r i
grapes.
There are four very interesting Moscato
Bianco wines made in southern Italy. Puglia's
moscato di Trani, once famous but forgotten in
the latter part of the twentieth century, is now
starting to make a comeback, thanks to a hand-
ful of small, quality-conscious producers such
as Franco di Filippo and Villa Schinosa. The
former is a young seventy-something who one
year saw his grapes refused by the big outfi t he
had annually sold them to, because of its eco-
nomic diffi culties. He decided to make and bot-
tle the wine on his own, and met with such
success that he hasn't had to look back since. I
have visited his old, canopied vineyards even in
July and can vouch for the fact that the Moscato
Bianco bunches look healthy and well under
their copious leaf canopy, an ideal training sys-
tem considering Puglia's stif ling summer
heat—I was just as happy as the grapes to be
standing under those leaves.
In Calabria, moscatello (or moscato) di Sara-
cena has seen a notable increase in production
over the last ten years, thanks mainly to the
success enjoyed by the Cantine Viola estate. It is
made mainly with the Moscatello di Saracena
variety (and small percentages of a few other
local varieties), also called Zibibbeddu in the
area around Ferruzzano; Moscatello di Sara-
cena is considered to be a local biotype of
Moscato Bianco. By contrast, Calabria's moscato
bianco di Scalea is not made with Moscato
Bianco at all, but rather Moscato Giallo. Unfor-
tunately, while in Italy's south it is an old habit
to refer to Moscato Bianco as Moscato Giallo,
there actually are a few, rare plantings of true
Moscato Giallo down south as well. Sicily's
moscato di Noto and moscato di Siracusa are
excellent wines, though some recently success-
ful wines from Noto tasted to me as if they had
been made with a good dollop of Moscato di
Alessandria. Moscato di Noto can also be made
as a very sweet
passito,
and is typical of eastern
Sicily, near Noto, Pachino, Rosolino, and Avola
(close to Syracuse). Good, authentic moscato di
Noto speaks of white muscat grown in warmer
climates, and is a perfumed, lightly sweet wine
full of grapefruit and rose aromas and fl avors,
but with a creamier, lower-acid mouthfeel and
obvious saline tang compared to Moscato
Bianco dessert wines made in Piedmont or in
cooler Italian regions. In contrast to Noto's
recent success, production of moscato di Sira-
cusa has tailed off in recent decades, and risked
disappearing altogether with the demise of the
Cappello winery. Thankfully, the Pupillo estate
