Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
bunches that are conical-pyramidal and slightly
elongated in shape, with medium-large oval or
round berries that have yellow-green, thick
skins. The berries are noticeably bigger and
juicier looking than those of Moscato Bianco.
Moscato di Alessandria is susceptible to oidium
and zinc defi ciency. It is one of the most heat-
and drought-resistant
Moscato
s, and also toler-
ates hot seaside breezes and windy conditions
well. This explains its distribution in countries
hugging the Mediterranean sea. In fact, it was
once also known as Moscato Romano. It's still
grown in large areas in Lower Egypt and there
are documents attesting to its cultivation there
in antiquity.
When you drink a “Muscat” wine from Sic-
ily, Greece, Cyprus, or the Canary Islands, you
are most likely drinking a wine made with
Moscato di Alessandria, though Moscato
Bianco also grows in the same areas. In fact,
Moscato di Alessandria is the most common
Moscato
of the eastern Mediterranean. In
France it is much less common than Moscato
Bianco; quite the opposite instead in northern
African countries (Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria), in
California, Washington, South Africa (where it
is the most common
Moscato
variety), Australia
and South America, where it has given rise to a
number of different crossings such as Cereza,
Moscatel Amarillo, Torrontés Mendocino, and
Torrontés Sanjuanino. In California, it grows
mainly in the Central Valley, most notably
around Fresno where I lived roughly two
decades ago and was always surprised by just
how well the variety seemed to thrive there.
Interestingly, Washington's oldest
Moscato
vineyard, planted in 1917, is of Moscato di Ales-
sandria and is still producing today: these
95-year-old vines are located on Snipes Moun-
tain near Sunnyside.
tion. In the hands of skilled producers, both dry
and sweet wines made with Moscato di Ales-
sandria can be a thing of beauty. The wine is
always richer than those made with Moscato
Bianco and Moscato Giallo, and usually have a
more saline and raisiny quality, even in the dry
versions. The sweet wines, rather than win you
over with fl oral aromas of orange blossom
(fairly typical of wines made with the other two
Moscato
s), are more about orange jam, caramel,
sweet fi gs in sugar syrup, and raisins.
Moscato di Alessandria is typical of Sicily
and especially the island of Pantelleria, a vol-
canic island jutting out into the sea and believed
by some to be a vestige of Atlantis. The wines
made here are archetypal of what the cultivar
can deliver in the dry and sweet styles: the DOC
Moscato di Pantelleria wine is fresh, dry, and
aromatic, with aromas and fl avors of dried
herbs, lily of the valley, ginger, and apricot; the
Passito di Pantelleria, made from air-dried
grapes, is sticky-sweet and lusciously creamy,
with obvious honey and orange marmalade aro-
mas and fl avors.
As Moscato and Passito di Pantelleria are
two of Italy's best-known and most-loved wines,
everyone wants to cash in on a supposedly easy
payday, so there are countless truly horrible ver-
sions available. By that I mean they generally
lack meaningful acidity so as to make them
nothing more than just sweet “one sip at most”
type failures. Therefore, knowing the better
producers is absolutely key. Unfortunately, the
diffi culties tied to viticulture on Pantelleria (80
percent of which is a national park, so that
planting new vineyards is difficult), the
extreme working conditions (harvesting on hot
volcanic rock is no picnic), and the impossibil-
ity of mechanical harvesting have greatly low-
ered wine production on the island over the last
twenty years. Whereas there were 450,000
quintals (one quintal is equivalent to 100 kilo-
grams) of grapes picked in 1973, there were
only 240,000 in 1990, and a steep decline to
the 28,000 picked in 2009. Fortunately, there
are estates that believe in the variety and the
wine, and are doing marvelous things with
Which Wines to Choose and Why
Perhaps because of its larger bunch and berries
and some very thick, sweet wines it is associ-
ated with, Moscato di Alessandria is often
unfairly described as a coarser member of the
Moscato family, but that's an unfair descrip-
